News – The CBSO announce a two-year extension for music director Kazuki Yamada

Posted on by
Reply

The following text comes from a City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra press release:

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) today announces a two-year contract extension for Music Director, Kazuki Yamada – reflecting his ever-deepening relationship with the orchestra and increasing involvement in creative decision making. The extension means that Yamada will remain as Music Director until the end of the 2028 – 2029 Season. 

In this season alone, he will have conducted more than 20 concerts in Birmingham, ranging from performances of landmark classical works, including an exploration of Ninth Symphonies by Mahler, Bruckner, Dvořák, and Beethoven. He appears twice with the CBSO Youth Orchestra and takes to the podium for the CBSO’s annual Schools’ concerts.

Last summer, Yamada played a pivotal role in bringing free live music to thousands across Birmingham during the CBSO In the City event – including performances on a tram, at New Street Station, and within the bustling Bullring shopping centre. Yamada’s role with the Orchestra extends far beyond Birmingham and this spring, he will take the Orchestra on tour to both Europe and Japan.

CBSO: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

Kazuki Yamada, Music Director, CBSO, says: “I am extremely happy to be renewing my contract with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Over the past few years, I have developed such a strong connection with the orchestra, and it has been a true privilege to build on the special relationship I have with these talented musicians. The CBSO is a super happy, positive, and motivated orchestra, and I have always been inspired by their passion and dedication. There’s so much potential for us to explore together, and I’m excited about the possibilities which lie ahead. 

I love the audiences and people of Birmingham as I fully immerse myself in the culture of Birmingham as a Brummie conductor! To continue my time with the orchestra feels like a wonderful affirmation of the trust and mutual respect we’ve built, and I can’t wait to see what we will achieve together moving forward.”

The news of Kazuki’s extension follows the announcement of Catherine Arlidge MBE being appointed into the role of Director of Artistic Planning at the CBSO last month, further strengthening the Orchestra’s artistic team.

Simon Halsey CBE, who has served as Chorus Director with the CBSO since 1982, will also take on the new role of Director, CBSO Chorus later this year. In his new role, Simon will focus his work on CBSO Chorus, working closely with leaders of Children’s & Youth Choruses, and SO Vocal, to programme an incredible season of choral music.

Simon will hold the new position for two seasons, while the organisation recruits a new Director, CBSO Chorus, to begin in the 2027/28 season. Once a new Director is appointed, Simon will take on an honorary title with continued commitment to the organisation. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in his longstanding partnership with the Orchestra, which will continue for many years to come – including his 50th anniversary in 2032.

Simon Halsey CBE, Chorus Director, CBSO, says: “As I enter my 43rd year as Chorus Director of the CBSO, I continue to be thankful for the extraordinary family of singers and players, adult and youth, that strive for the very best in our large and excitingly diverse city.

An informal calculation suggests that I’ve heard over ten thousand choral auditions and taken some three thousand rehearsals on behalf of our inspiring music directors!
We have formed children’s, youth and community choirs in addition to the CBSO Chorus. And we’ve helped train 50 postgraduate choral conductors in association with the University of Birmingham.

I am beyond thrilled to extend my relationship with our choirs and orchestra in the long-term and grateful that the organisation – my musical family – will allow me to share more widely the responsibilities as the years pass; allowing me to be an active part of the organisation for 50 years.”

Emma Stenning, Chief Executive, CBSO, says: “I am thrilled that the brilliant Kazuki Yamada will remain Music Director of the CBSO until August 2029. 

From working with students at our incredible school, the Shireland CBSO Academy, to leading the Orchestra at the BBC Proms, he is truly at the heart of our music making.

More than that, he is totally committed to Birmingham, as a city of immense cultural breadth and creative opportunity.  That he can delight audiences at Symphony Hall with performances of such emotion, depth and joy, jump on a tram to bring free music to commuters, or don a Halloween costume to lead us in a night of spooky adventure at the Hockley Social Club, he entirely embodies everything that CBSO hopes to be, and we are privileged to extend our relationship with him in this way.

Simon Halsey’s work with the CBSO Chorus is already the stuff of legend. Planning through towards celebrating a remarkable half century with him in 2032 has reminded all of us of the brilliance, creativity and absolute class of his creative leadership, and we all greatly look forward to the exciting work that is to come.

Along with Cath’s step out of the orchestra into her new Director of Artistic Planning role, the CBSO’s creative leadership shows exceptional strength, and I look forward to us working together over the coming years to bring great music to Birmingham, the West Midlands and beyond.”

Pictures of Kazuki Yamada (c) Hannah Fathers (top) and Andrew Fox

Published post no.2,425 – Wednesday 29 January 2025

On Record – David Allred: The Beautiful World (Erased Tapes)

Posted on by
Reply

by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Portland composer David Allred releases a new album on Erased Tapes dedicated to ‘the expression of existential themes such as death, grief, longing and loss’.

There is a deeply personal element to this expression, for the album is dedicated to a Lauren, a young family friend lost to suicide.

The Erased Tapes press release describes how he set about composing the album. “For some musicians, a change in instrumentation, theme or learning a new artistic vocabulary helps them to move in a different direction. For Allred, a long period of introspection was more relevant to the development of his practice:

“I find beautiful irony when I consciously disconnect myself from working on music because it gives me more fuel and inspiration to engage in it more meaningfully when I resume. In the past, I used to work and create recklessly without boundaries which led to growth and success but at the cost of occasional disassociation. I would be checked out at times even while working […] but now that I make music less often, I feel like I’m growing with what I do, and truly living life more. And since I’m getting more out of life, I have more to say. These boundaries have given me greater access to the things that inspire me, along with a peace of mind and the ability to rest when I maintain this balance.”

His work on the album brought a realisation that everyone has a Lauren in their own way – making The Beautiful World a story of intense loss.

What’s the music like?

Allred immerses his listener in a lovely bath of sound from the start, Pupper creating a dense cloud of music that sets the mood for a period of intense reflection and meditation. It is however possible to sit outside the intensity as a listener, and just let the gorgeous sounds wash over you.

This applies particularly to tracks like Stray, with its soft piano prompts and rich flurries of texture that, while fast moving, act as a shimmering drone. Piano Tree brings the instrument to the fore, chiming through the instrumental haze. Meanwhile The Door has a touching fragility, starting as though replicating machines in a hospital but then with wordless voices that appear to inhabit the moment where a soul passes to the other side.

Allred’s personal tribute finds its apex in the touching Oh Lauren, telling her story in a moving commentary. Yet the closing Elevation 145 is similarly moving in spite of its lack of words. Here a surge of colour and consonant harmony, expressed as a drone, offers hope and dazzling light, in the form of a massive wall of sound.

Does it all work?

It does. Allred’s aim was to encourage listeners ‘to sit with the concept of grief…hopeful they can find comfort and learn to process it in a healing way.’ He certainly achieves that here.

Is it recommended?

Yes. The Beautiful World is a touching piece of work, striking in its simple beauty and with a reach that extends beyond grief to ultimate piece. It gives a great deal of consolation in troubled times.

For fans of… Peter Broderick, Arthur Russell, Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter

Listen / Buy

https://davidallred.bandcamp.com/album/the-beautiful-world-1

Published post no.2,424 – Tuesday 28 January 2025

Playlist – Sir Simon Rattle @ 70

Posted on by
Reply

by Ben Hogwood

Last week the British conductor Sir Simon Rattle celebrated his 70th birthday. Since the 1980s Rattle has played a hugely important part in classical music in the UK, with important conducting posts at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker and London Symphony Orchestra. In 2023 he returned once more to Germany, as principal conductor for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

In that time, Rattle has made a huge range of recordings, from Haydn to Adès via Beethoven, Grainger and Schoenberg. Resisting temptation to compile a playlist of snippets, I have opted for a small number of heavyweight recordings, including Adès‘ Asyla, Schoenberg‘s Chamber Symphony no.1 and Stravinsky‘s Le Sacre du Printemps, his first recording on starting with the LSO in 2017. Topping the bill, however, is his CBSO recording of Mahler‘s Second Symphony, the Resurrection, the piece with which he opened Birmingham’s Symphony Hall in 1991. You can listen to the playlist on Tidal below:

Published post no.2,424 – Monday 27 January 2025

In concert – Benjamin Grosvenor, CBSO / Robert Treviño: Mozart ‘Prague’ Symphony, Mendelssohn Piano Concerto no.1 & Brahms Symphony no.1

Posted on by
Reply

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano, below), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Robert Treviño (above)

Mozart Symphony no.38 in D major K504 ‘Prague’ (1786)
Mendelssohn Piano Concerto no.1 in G minor Op.25 (1830-31)
Brahms Symphony no.1 in C minor Op.68 (1868-76)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 23 January 2025 (2.15pm)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of Benjamin Grosvenor (c) Jenny Bestwick

Having worked with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions, Robert Treviño was well placed to take on a programme which was pretty demanding for all that its constituents were hardly unfamiliar – its two symphonies repertoire works to the core.

His cycle of Beethoven symphonies (Ondine) among the best of recent years, it was perhaps surprising to find Treviño boxing himself in interpretively with Mozart’s Prague symphony. If the first movement’s Adagio introduction was imposingly wrought, the main Allegro was taken at too consistently headlong a tempo for its intricacy of textures and its range of expression fully to register, though the CBSO admirably stayed the course. Nor was the central Andante wholly successful, the pervasiveness of its five-note motif not matched by the diversity of emotional responses to which this is put, with the development sounding harried rather than impetuous. Best was a final Presto that was a sizable-enough counterpart (first- and second-half repeats taken) to what went before, and its élan maintained through to the effervescent closing bars.

Fresh from having taken on Busoni’s epic Piano Concerto (most notably at last year’s Proms), Benjamin Grosvenor (above) met the very different challenge of Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto with comparable conviction. Written quickly but with nothing left to chance, this takes up the precedent of Weber’s Konzertstück (which, completed barely a decade earlier, had featured at Mendelssohn’s public debut) by eliding its individual movements into a succinct and cohesive whole. Vividly as Grosvenor projected its opening Molto allegro – no lack of ‘con fuoco’ – he came into his own with an Andante whose dialogue of piano and lower strings was meltingly rendered, then a final Presto both dextrous and exhilarating. The CBSO made a fine recording with Stephen Hough a quarter-century ago (Hyperion) and this was at the very least its equal.

Even so, it was Brahms’s First Symphony as proved the highlight of this afternoon’s concert. Whereas his Mozart had felt unduly beholden to ‘authentic’ concepts, Treviño was entirely his own man here – not least the opening movement whose implacable introduction linked effortlessly into an Allegro trenchantly characterized and with a cumulative impetus such as carried over into the fatalistic coda. Its eloquence never laboured, the Andante featured some felicitous woodwind and a poised contribution from guest leader Nathaniel Anderson-Frank.

Having had the measure of what feels more intermezzo than scherzo, pensive and playful by turns, Treviño steered a secure and always purposeful course through the lengthy finale. Its introductory Adagio preparing stealthily for a fervent if not over-bearing take on its majestic ‘alpine’ melody, the main Allegro was unerringly paced so that its formal elaboration never risked being discursive. Nor was the CBSO found wanting in a peroration that endowed the main motivic ideas with a resolution the more powerful for having been so acutely gauged.

There can be few seasons when Brahms’s First Symphony does not feature in this orchestra’s schedule, but Treviño’s was surely among the most impressive in recent memory; confirming demonstrable rapport between him and the CBSO one hopes will be renewed before too long.

For details on the 2024-25 season A Season of Joy, head to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about pianist Benjamin Grosvenor and conductor Robert Treviño

Published post no.2,423 – Sunday 26 January 2025

On this day in 1905 – the world premiere of Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande

Posted on by
Reply

by Ben Hogwood Picture by Richard Gerstl

On this day in 1905, the world premiere of Schoenberg’s orchestral piece Pelleas und Melisande took place, in Vienna’s Musikverein.

This is a remarkable piece, an example of Schoenberg’s ultra-intense style as he began to show signs of breaking with tonality. The story unfolds in an unbroken span of over 40 minutes, during which the large orchestra bathe in rich harmony and lush colouring on the part of the composer’s skilful instrumentation.

The piece can be heard here with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and David Markham: