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London Sinfonietta

Orchestra

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Jack Sheen

Singer

Nina Guo

Soprano

Southbank Centre

New Traditions

London

United Kingdom

Queen Elizabeth Hall

New Traditions: Microvariations Macklay (+3 More)

Public

Microvariations

waste knot

Shades of red

Tales of the Traveller

Approved

South Bank Centre

Sky Macklay’s Microvariations lulls listeners into a false sense of tonality before whisking them on a whistle-stop, microtonal tour of 19th-century European orchestras, ‘a fast-forward and transcontinental sonic truncation and fantasy on’ the journey of British conductor George Thomas Smart and his tuning fork in 1825.

In George Lewis’ lively Tales of the Traveller, the titular character’s travels take place within the limits of imagination: the piece allows a soloist (on any instrument) total free reign to improvise against a notated ensemble part.

After the interval, Katherine Balch’s waste not, a ‘serenade to lost or wasted time’, plays a soprano soloist against four hand-held cassette tape recorders to distort and fragment our memory of the piece even as it is played.

The programme is rounded off by Michel van der Aa’s latest commission for the London Sinfonietta, Shades of Red. It illustrates the different perceived properties of the colour red, alongside a soundtrack which confronts the players with their own warped and distorted sound-world.

English

New Traditions by Macklay, Balch, K., Van Der Aa, Lewis, G., From (2024/2024), Conductor Jack Sheen, South Bank Centre, London, United Kingdom

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Ensemble

Program, About & Synopsis

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