Vivid, moreish music by Unsuk Chin and Donghoon Shin, plus beguiling works by emerging talents, conducted by François-Xavier Roth.
The Programme
Unsuk Chin’s glimmering SPIRA grows out of the resonance of two vibraphones, its title referencing the ‘marvellous spiral’ that a 17th-century mathematician observed all over the natural world. Donghoon Shin’s eloquent Cello Concerto is inspired by the eerie visions of Austrian poet Georg Trakl.
And how do emerging composers begin to collaborate with major orchestras? The London Symphony Orchestra’s Panufnik Composers Scheme sets out to bring them together. This year, the scheme culminates in this concert, which presents world premieres by rising stars Christian Drew and Stef Conner.
LSO Futures is a collaboration between François-Xavier Roth and the LSO that goes back over a decade – ‘a festival championing new music, not just the music of our time, but also music from the last decades’, in the conductor’s own words. ‘I often say that I love contemporary music from all periods of music history,’ says Roth. ‘All music was modern music at the time. And I think that as a society, as an audience, as artists, the more we have close contact to the music written today, the better. There’s a risk in something you don’t know; something that shakes us or provokes us is healthy. And I think that music should keep going, inventing and showing the world of tomorrow.’
The Performers
François-Xavier Roth, Principal Guest Conductor of the LSO, leads the Panufnik Composers Scheme workshops each year, and the musicians of the LSO collaborate closely with the composers. Their relish for this creative challenge fuels every note of the performance.