Classical and Jazz: Latest News > October 13
Published: 13 October, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
THERE’S a lot of choice for Mozart enthusiasts in coming days in addition to the ENO’s new Figaro at the Coliseum.
Kings Place is continuing with its year-long Mozart Unwrapped series with some enticing concerts, starting tomorrow, Friday, with the Prague Symphony and flute and oboe concertos played by the Academy of St Martin in the fields.
Saturday evening sees revered pianist Imogen Cooper joined by oboist Nicholas Daniel to perform the Grand Quintet in E flat for piano and winds, a piece considered by Mozart to to be “the best work I have ever composed”.
Then, on Sunday morning, there’s a concert featuring The Glass Harmonica, Mozart’s adagio for the fascinating instrument played by its leading exponent Alasdair Malloy – and he’s prefacing the concert with an introduction to the glass harmonica.
• The 75th birthday of American composer Steve Reich is being marked by a birthday concert at the Barbican on Saturday evening. It promises to provide a feast for Reichian enthusiasts and, indeed, for those interested in modern music. That’s because the phenomenal Synergy Voices are singing alongside the London Symphony Orchestra under Estonian-American conductor Kristjan Jarvi.
Concert items include Three Movements, where Reich binds orchestra and conductor together with a mesmerising metronomic power and energetic vocals in The Desert Music. Being performed too is his famed piece Clapping Hands that seeks to meet his quest to create a piece of music that needs no instruments beyond the human body.