Britten Sinfonia to play music by the celebrated Suffolk composer as well as Aaron Copland
Britten Sinfonia will be joined by soprano Elizabeth Watts for 'Les Illuminations', at The Apex, later this month. Photo: Britten Sinfonia.
Fifty years since Britten’s death, Britten Sinfonia present a programme that focuses on the years he spent in North America during the Second World War and the orchestra is set to perform at The Apex, in Bury St Edmunds, later this month.
Music written in Canada and the USA is paired with music by his “very dear friend” and mentor, Aaron Copland, from the same decade.
Between April 1939 and April 1942, Britten and his partner Peter Pears enjoyed personally and professionally formative years in North America.
Much of the dazzling song cycle “Les Illuminations” – settings of proto-surrealist poetry by Arthur Rimbaud – was composed early in their stay, and the vigorous “Young Apollo” for piano and strings was a commission by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, premiered in August 1939.
In the winter of 1940-41, Britten and Pears lived in an extraordinary Brooklyn house-share with the poet W. H. Auden, the Burlesque artist Gypsy Rose Lee and composer-novelist Paul Bowles.
Copland was a frequent visitor, alongside many others, including Salvador Dali, Thomas Mann and Kurt Weill.
This programme also includes two of Copland’s greatest works from the 1940s – the ballet “Appalachian Spring” and the “Clarinet Concerto”, written for Benny Goodman – and piano works by his student Paul Bowles, who would later become much better known as the author of the novel, “The Sheltering Sky”.
Britten Sinfonia are joined by soprano Elizabeth Watts for “Les Illuminations”, and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Oleg Shebeta-Dragan for Copland’s “Clarinet Concerto.
The programme includes:
Britten – Young Apollo
Copland – Clarinet Concerto
Britten – Les Illuminations
Copland – Appalachian Spring
Elizabeth Watts – soprano; Oleg Shebeta-Dragan – clarinet; Huw Watkins – piano; and Zoë Beyers – violin / director.
Britten Sinfonia play at The Apex on Tuesday, May 19, at 7.30pm.
See www.theapex.co.uk or ring 01284 758000 for more information, or to book tickets.