Our **Public Rehearsals** are an open invitation to see performers in action in a relaxed, unfiltered environment. Public Rehearsals allow space for those who may feel uncomfortable in traditional performance settings — children, parents/carers, individuals with neurodiversity and/or special educational needs — or those who are curious about experiencing live events for the first time.

Join us for a special Public Rehearsal by the **Philharmonia Orchestra** and **Philharmonia Chorus**, led by award-winning young Finnish conductor **Emilia Hoving**, joining us specially from Helsinki.

The **Philharmonia Orchestra** and **Philharmonia Chorus** will be performing Gustav Holst: The Planets. A spectacular astrological portrait composed for a vast orchestra of 95 players, the work features a hidden chorus of women’s voices, singing from outer space over orchestra, harp and organ. A gifted music teacher who worked in South London, Holst was shy, nervous and private, most at home in the solitude of the sound-proofed room where he wrote his music. The Planets is the result of Holst’s investigations into cosmology, begun as a route to alleviating his own depression.

This event is free and open to all. Tickets are required for all attendees.

All ages

Bold Tendencies

Public Rehearsal, Gustav Holst: The Planets

Gigs

London

The 2023 season opens with *The Planets* by **Gustav Holst**, a spectacular astrological portrait composed for a vast orchestra of 95 players and a hidden chorus of women’s voices, singing from outer space over orchestra, harp and organ. A gifted music teacher who worked in South London, Holst began investigating cosmology to alleviate his own disillusionment and depression. Shy, nervous and private, he craved the silence and solitude of the sound-proofed room where he wrote his music. Performing are the **Philharmonia Orchestra** and **Philharmonia Chorus**, led by award-winning young Finnish conductor **Emilia Hoving**, joining us specially from Helsinki.

All ages

Gustav Holst: The Planets

Philharmonia Orchestra

**\*Dates and speakers to be announced. Please note that you are registering your interest in the upcoming events and not purchasing a ticket\***

A mainstay of the British punk scene, **Derek Jarman** (1942-1994) was an acclaimed English artist, filmmaker, set designer, gardener, author and gay rights activist. He produced challenging and evocative work that cemented his reputation as an underground hero up until his untimely death in 1994. In 1986 Jarman was diagnosed with AIDS. From then until his passing, Jarman made his home on the shingle beaches of Dungeness, Kent. Faced with impending blindness and his own inevitable death, Jarman produced perhaps his strongest work, the film *Blue* (1993) and also found solace in nature and gardening, keeping a series of diaries that would eventually become the book *Modern Nature*. The unlikely flourishing of plants upon his barren seaside shore is a powerful metaphor for the persistence of marginalised communities: the tenacious proliferation of the brilliant and unexpected, within the seemingly uninhabitable.

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Bold Tendencies' own **Derek Jarman Garden** (imagined on the rooftop by **Keith Collins** 1966-2018) - we celebrate Jarman’s life and legacy. *Modern Nature* is brought to life in partnership with **Living Theatre Productions** in a series of live public readings in which Jarman's diary entries are performed in the months in which they were written. Directed by Olivier award-winning **James Dacre**, this special project simultaneously constitutes an elegy for a tragically lost generation and an ode to the majesty of all that remains.

All ages

Derek Jarman: Modern Nature

talks

Talk

*Verified* is about the search for authenticity and acceptance amidst the growing pressures of social media and living in a digital age.

**The Multi-Story Orchestra’s Young Creatives** and composer **Kate Whitley** join forces to create this vibrant, new and large-scale work for choir and orchestra.

Featuring three original songs, *Verified* blends orchestral instrumentation with contemporary styles such as R&B, reggaeton and rap under the musical leadership of songwriters **Abimaro Gunnell**, **Frances Lobo** and trombonist **Yusuf Narcin**.

**The Multi-Story Orchestra** will perform the piece alongside internationally acclaimed soloists from The Borletti Buitoni Trust - **Ruby Hughes,** **Hyeyoon Park** and **Simone Rubino**, as well as soprano **Francesa Chiejina**.

*Verified* was commissioned by The Borletti-Buitoni Trust and is performed in celebration of The Trust’s 20th anniversary in 2023. Founded in 2011 by composer **Kate Whitley** and conductor **Christopher Stark**, The Multi-Story Orchestra brings together professional musicians and young people to create extraordinary performances in unusual spaces.

Choir leader: Frances Lobo

Soloists: Ruby Hughes, Hyeyoon Park, Simone Rubino, Francesca Chiejina

Creative Team: Kate Whitley, Abimaro Gunnell, Fran Lobo, Yusuf Narcin, Sofia Armella

Funders: The Borletti-Buitoni Trust, Arts Council England, Cockayne Grants for the Arts, London Community Foundation

All ages

The Multi-Story Orchestra: Verified

Multi-Story Orchestra

*Verified* is about the search for authenticity and acceptance amidst the growing pressures of social media and living in a digital age.

**The Multi-Story Orchestra’s Young Creatives** and composer **Kate Whitley** join forces to create this vibrant, new and large-scale work for choir and orchestra.

Featuring three original songs, *Verified* blends orchestral instrumentation with contemporary styles such as R&B, reggaeton and rap under the musical leadership of songwriters **Abimaro Gunnell**, **Frances Lobo** and trombonist **Yusuf Narcin**.

**The Multi-Story Orchestra** will perform the piece alongside internationally acclaimed soloists from The Borletti Buitoni Trust - **Ruby Hughes**, **Hyeyoon Park** and **Simone Rubino**, as well as soprano **Francesa Chiejina**.

*Verified* was commissioned by The Borletti-Buitoni Trust and is performed in celebration of The Trust’s 20th anniversary in 2023. Founded in 2011 by composer **Kate Whitley** and conductor **Christopher Stark**, The Multi-Story Orchestra brings together professional musicians and young people to create extraordinary performances in unusual spaces.

Choir leader: Frances Lobo

Soloists: Ruby Hughes, Hyeyoon Park, Simone Rubino, Francesca Chiejina

Creative Team: Kate Whitley, Abimaro Gunnell, Fran Lobo, Yusuf Narcin, Sofia Armella

Funders: The Borletti-Buitoni Trust, Arts Council England, Cockayne Grants for the Arts, London Community Foundation

All ages

With an eclectic animal cast of mouse, duck, horse, pig, toad, dog, fish and a beautiful but dangerous black and white cat, this miniature cartoon-opera is the most delightful of Shostakovich’s works for children. The tale of farmyard animals and their unruly offspring will be sung in a new English translation, re-framed and presented in a contemporary urban and human context. 8 - 14 year olds are invited to become performers and co-creators in an intensive, inventive rehearsal process, from design to choreography to creative translation. The weekend will culminate in a celebratory performance on Sunday afternoon, starring acclaimed soprano **Claire Booth** as Mrs. Cat.

**This performance is BSL interpreted.**

All ages

Dmitri Shostakovich: The Silly Little Mouse

Dmitri Shostakovich - Glupiy mishonok (The Silly Little Mouse), Op. 56

Acclaimed writer, philosopher and curator **Paul B. Preciado** (b.1970) joins us to read his seminal work, *Can the Monster Speak?*

In 2019, Preciado was invited to speak at the École de la Cause Freudienne’s annual conference in Paris in front of 3,500 psychoanalysts. Though barred from finishing his lecture due to the heckles of the crowd, smartphone recordings of Preciado’s speech began to circulate on social media, transforming the theorist into a household name. Weaving together personal experience and continental theory, the full transcript of the speech *Can the Monster Speak?* was published for the first time as a book in 2021 by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Incredibly relevant in our current climate of crisis, Preciado’s text compels us to make use of the opportunity our age of catastrophe allows for reformation - to reframe outdated and harmful beliefs that label queer, trans and other marginalised peoples as “deviant”, in the pursuit of a better, future, hybrid world.

Paul B. Preciado lives and works in Paris, and is currently Curator of Public Programmes at the Palais de Tokyo. Since 2013 Preciado has regularly contributed to the online edition of the French newspaper, Libération. In 2023 Preciado released his essay-film, *Orlando: My Political Biography*, based on the gender fluid, time-travelling protagonist of Virginia Woolf’s novel.

This is a 14+ event

Paul B Preciado: Can the Monster Speak?

Iconic American composer **Philip Glass** has written many works across his career centred around the organ, celebrated here in a programme performed by **James McVinnie**. Perhaps better known in the cathedral or concert hall, the spatial conditions at Bold Tendencies are perfect for the organ’s vast, powerful sound and this special event will open our new “Slope Stage”. Opening with a jubilant Fanfare, McVinnie draws us into Glass’ seminal musical language with his presentation of important works including *Music in Fifths*, the Finale from *Satyagraha* and the masterwork *Mad Rush*, written in celebration of the Dalai Lama’s first public address in the US, a meditative and sublime study of mind/life.

**Philip Glass** (b.1937) is an American composer who emerged in the 1960s New York downtown art scene where he played his early compositions in non-traditional concert venues, lofts and galleries. Unparalleled in his ability to enthral a wide multi-generational audience across opera houses, concert halls, the dance world, film and popular music, his many collaborators include Brian Eno, David Bowie, Angélique Kidjo, Arthur Russell, Nico Muhly, and Laurie Anderson.

**James McVinnie** (b.1983) is a musician and performer, working at the intersection of the organ, contemporary classical and electronic music. Renowned for his boundless approach to music making and performance, McVinnie is founder of the James McVinnie Ensemble, a collective of London-based virtuoso keyboardists specialising in new music, inaugurated at Bold Tendencies in 2021.

All ages

Philip Glass: Music for Organ - James McVinnie

The annual summer celebration of Fitzcarraldo Editions welcomes writers and translators **Kate Briggs**, **Jacqueline Rose** and **Polly Barton**. Briggs will read from *The Long Form*: reaching back to the start of the novel tradition, Briggs' brilliant debut interrogates the complexities of contemporary living. Rose will read from her collection of essays *The Plague*: exploring the COVID-19 pandemic through to the war in Ukraine, Rose entreats us to imagine a world in which a radical respect for death might exist alongside a fairer distribution of the earth's wealth. Finally, Barton will read from her wonderful translation of Mieko Kanai’s *Mild Vertigo*, an intoxicating novel which tackles the existential traps of motherhood, marriage and domesticity.

**Kate Briggs** is the translator of two volumes of Roland Barthes’s lecture and seminar notes at the Collège de France: *The Preparation of the Novel* and *How to Live Together*. *The Long Form*, her debut novel, follows *This Little Art*, a genre-bending essay on translation. In 2021, Kate Briggs was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize.

**Jacqueline Rose** is the author of numerous books about psychoanalysis, literature and culture, feminism, and the Middle East. She is the cofounder of Independent Jewish Voices and a fellow of the British Academy.

**Polly Barton** is a Japanese literary translator. She won the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize for Fifty Sounds. Her second book, *Porn: An Oral History*, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in March 2023.

All ages

Fitzcarraldo Editions Summer Celebration

Residing at the intersection of movement, history, community and culture, *Routes* is a new performance piece by the **Multi-Story Young Creatives**, directed by **Abi Falase** with music led by singer songwriter **Frances Lobo** and composer **Kate Whitley**. The performance blends narration and song in celebration of the personal journeys that bring us together. Set in South London and inspired by the musicians’ personal experiences, *Routes* is a story of legacy and the trails we leave as we walk through life.

This performance will feature **The Multi-Story Orchestra**, a full choir and narrators.

Founded in 2011 by composer **Kate Whitley** and conductor **Christopher Stark**, The Multi-Story Orchestra brings together professional musicians and young people to create extraordinary performances in unusual spaces.

Choir leader: Frances Lobo, Abimaro Gunnell

Creative Team: Kate Whitley, Abi Falase, Fran Lobo, Sofia Armella

Funders: Arts Council England, Austin, Hope & Pilkington, Garfield Weston

All ages

The Multi-Story Orchestra: Routes

We are excited to welcome path breaking American artist **Davóne Tines** to Bold Tendencies. “Davóne Tines Is Changing What It Means to Be a Classical Singer” (New Yorker). This powerful recital takes its starting point from religious impetuses that have found expression in various musical traditions across centuries: a plea for mercy, a call to praise, a desire for salvation. Tines brings together music by Caroline Shaw with spirituals, Bach arias and pieces by 20th-century Black composers in an hour long monologue. This ‘Mass’ concludes with a song of thanks - with hope: “Where there is darkness, we’ll bring light.”

**Davóne Tines** (b. 1986) is a pathbreaking artist whose work encompasses a diverse repertoire, from early music to new commissions by leading composers. A performer at the intersection, Tines’ work blends cultures, opera, art song, contemporary classical music, spirituals, gospel, and songs of protest. Tines is Artist-in-Residence at Detroit Opera, a member of AMOC and co-creator of *The Black Clown*, a music theatre experience commissioned and premiered by The American Repertory Theater. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and Harvard University, where he serves as guest lecturer.

All ages

Davóne Tines

For more than a decade, **The White Review** has published new fiction, essays, interviews, art and poetry.

The annual White Review Summer Party brings together contributors and readers including **Sophie Mackintosh**, selected as a 2023 GRANTA Best of Young British Novelists and whose third novel, *Cursed Bread*, is long-listed for the Women’s Prize; **Momtaza Mehri**, former Young People’s Poet Laureate for London whose work spans criticism, translation, anti-disciplinary research practices, education, and radio; and award-winning London-based poet and novelist **A K Blakemore**, whose novel, *Glutton*, will be published in September.

The White Review archive features the likes of Philippa Snow, Celia Bell, Preti Taneja, Meena Kandasamy, Fernanda Melchor, Nuar Alsadir, Vanessa Onwuemezi, Nicole Flattery, Claire-Louise Bennett, Virginie Despentes, Orit Gat, Alexandra Kleeman, Chris Kraus, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Pola Oloixorac, Eley Williams, Lauren Elkin and many many more.

Back issues available for purchase on the night, followed by drinks.

All ages

The White Review Summer Party

Manchester Collective are known for their radical experimental programming and daring collaborations, and we are excited to welcome them for this double programme of Richard Strauss’ visions of spiritual transformation, human depravity and evolution. Arguably the most sensuous of all the composer’s output, and one of his final works, *Four Last Songs* (1948) is a conscious farewell to the world and a contemplation of eternity. It is paired with *Metamorphosen* (1945), a work of staggering rhythmic and melodic complexity, written at a time of immense and permanent change in the world.

Since their formation in 2016, **Manchester Collective** have performed in concert halls, gig venues and factory spaces across Europe and the UK. Their experimental programming spans music from the cutting-edge and contemporary to the classical, and embraces daring collaborations. At the heart of Manchester Collective is the desire to create powerful human experiences - to inspire audiences through the platforming of a fresh and diverse musical world.

All ages

Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs and Metamorphosen

Manchester Collective

Heavy with fury, swagger and humanity, award-winning artist Oona Doherty’s dance theatre work is a panacea in our current age of crisis: distinctive, visceral and intense with a fundamental belief in dance as a catalyst for social change. We are excited to welcome her to Bold Tendencies for the first time with this special performance of her iconic work *Hope Hunt:* between physical theatre, social proclamation and dance. An ode to strength and vulnerability, hitting and swerving at extreme stereotypes of cultural and social class: “It looks to make the smicks, the spides, the hoods, the gipsies, the knackers into the birds of paradise. It is a hunt for hope.” *Hope Hunt* will be performed live by dancer **Sati Veyrunes** and DJ M**axime Jerry Fraisse.**

Alongside *Hope Hunt* we will screen Doherty’s visceral, unsettling film *Navy Blue Faces*. Featuring music from **Sergei Rachmaninoff** and **Jamie xx**, the piece urges us to question society’s current trajectory, highlighting and appealing for the pressing need for change.

**Oona Doherty** (b.1986) is a dance artist based in Northern Ireland. Doherty is singular in her ability to transcend the boundaries between flesh and soul, audience and stage. Her work is distinctive, visceral and intense. Since 2010 Doherty has performed with and choreographed for distinguished companies internationally, and has produced six full length original works. In 2021 she was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Dance Biennale.

All ages

Oona Doherty

Step into a world of renewal and resilience. *STONE SEED* is an immersive live performance that celebrates the power of Peckham to rebuild and reclaim what has been lost. Experience the transformative energy of music, sound, and poetry in this unique exploration of creativity and destruction envisioned by poet, filmmaker and photographer **Caleb Femi** who grew up on the North Peckham Estate. *STONE SEED* is presented and produced by **SLOGhouse** and **Bold Tendencies**. It follows our live presentation of Femi’s poetry collection *POOR* in 2022. **Caleb Femi** (b. 1990) is a Nigerian-British poet, filmmaker and photographer. Femi’s poetry is often autobiographical, exploring his experience as a young black man in Britain. In 2016 Femi became the first Young People’s Laureate, a platform he used to put into practice his desire to rid poetry of inaccessibility. His debut poetry collection *POOR* (2020) won the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and the Forward Prize for Poetry (2021). Femi has directed TV episodes for HBO and the BBC, as well as written and directed short films for the BBC and Channel 4. In 2022 Femi directed the Louis Vuitton Men’s 2022 runway show, and has also directed campaign films for Mulberry, TikTok, Bottega Veneta, NCS and other global brands.

All ages

Caleb Femi

Coconut Oil

Music by Arvo Pärt, Francis Poulenc, Sam Wu and Edvard Grieg.

**Johan Dalene** **(b. 2000)** is a Swedish-Norwegian violinist. Awarded the prestigious Norwegian Soloist Prize at First Prize at the Carl Nielsen Competition in 2019, he has since risen in international acclaim, culminating in his selection as an ECHO Rising Star (2021-22). In 2023 Dalene will make his debut in America, staging a series of recitals at New York’s Carnegie Hall and San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall. He is joined for this special programme in Peckham by his regular performance partner, award-winning British pianist **Nicola Eimer.**

Arvo Pärt, *Fratres (Brothers)  
*Francis Poulenc, *Violin Sonata, FP 119*  
Sam Wu, *Waterways*  
Edvard Grieg, *Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, Op. 13*

All ages

Johan Dalene and Nicola Eimer

Johan Dalene

**GBSR Duo** \[George Barton (b.1988) and Siwan Rhys (b.1986)\] bring together the merciless, cruel sonic world of **Galina Ustvolskaya** (1919-2006) with the addictive tones of British composer **Oliver Leith** (b.1990): “Deadpan, subversive, quietly anarchic, disarmingly heart-sore and sweet-sour music.” (Kate Molleson). The music of Ustvolskaya is tough and uncompromising. Famously reclusive, she committed her life to her compositions, of which only 25 survive. Her output is exemplified by *Dies Irae* (1973): brutal, violent and unforgettable. Written for eight double basses, piano and a large wooden box built to resemble a coffin, she called it ‘music that should sound dead behind the eyes’. By contrast, Oliver Leith’s *good day good day bad day bad day* (for piano, keyboards and percussion), evokes a conciliatory world where the spectre of anxiety and codependency always lurks unconfronted. Its picture of the musical “everyday” of George and Siwan’s living room is a tender, intimate and ambiguous elongation of domesticity into the public realm. Both pieces speak to our human capacity to engage in acts of free will, even as we may seem trapped by societal structures in our current moment of crisis.

Two of the UK’s finest young contemporary chamber musicians, **GBSR Duo** is renowned for its cross-disciplinary and experimental work: exceptional interpretations of the existing piano-percussion repertoire, committed performances of ambitious new commissions and inventive collaborations.

All ages

GBSR Duo: Galina Ustvolskaya and Oliver Leith 

good day good day bad day bad day I

GBSR Duo

Get swept away by Multi-Story's electrifying *Into the Deep*, a piece following the journey of water devised by the **Multi-Story Young Creatives** with music led by singer songwriters **Fran Lobo** and **Abimaro Gunnell**, composer **Kate Whitley** and percussionists **Joe Richards** and **Elsa Bradley.**

Featuring a chamber choir and brass and percussion ensemble, this piece explores the changing states of water - from the first raindrop to the vast ocean. Starting with our orchestra spread all across Bold Tendencies’ incredible space, this is a journey you do not want to miss.

Choir leader: Fran Lobo

Creative Team: Kate Whitley, Sofia Armella, Fran Lobo, Abimaro Gunnell, Kerry Skidmore, Joe Richards, Elsa Bradley

Funders: D’Oyly Carte, Arts Council England, Garfield Weston

All ages

The Multi-Story Orchestra: Into The Deep

Get swept away by Multi-Story's electrifying *Into the Deep*, a piece following the journey of water devised by the **Multi-Story Young Creatives** with music led by singer songwriters **Fran Lobo** and **Abimaro Gunnell**, composer **Kate Whitley** and percussionists **Joe Richards** and **Elsa Bradley**.

Featuring a chamber choir and brass and percussion ensemble, this piece explores the changing states of water - from the first raindrop to the vast ocean. Starting with our orchestra spread all across Bold Tendencies’ incredible space, this is a journey you do not want to miss.

Choir leader: Fran Lobo

Creative Team: Kate Whitley, Sofia Armella, Fran Lobo, Abimaro Gunnell, Kerry Skidmore, Joe Richards, Elsa Bradley

Funders: D’Oyly Carte, Arts Council England, Garfield Weston

All ages

**Jay Bernard** (b.1988) has embraced a holistic approach to artmaking. Pivoting around their desire to explore the relationship between inner truth and grand political narratives, their oeuvre spans poetry, audio-visual media, graphic illustration, theatre-making, archiving, and film programming. Expansive in its output, Bernard’s work is tied together by its consistently interrogative undercurrent, presenting themes of injustice, queerness, family relationships and state surveillance, in critical and unexpected ways.

Bernard presents this new work, *The Last Seven Years*, composed of the voices and experiences of British people throughout this turbulent time period, across the four nations of the UK. Bernard has been meeting with people from all walks of life and corners of the nation, encouraging them to open up about their lives, and to recall in detail the last seven years. With the question of what people remember versus what was actually going on as a starting point, what emerges is the correlation between individuals and the seismic socio-political events that have occurred from 2016 onwards, with Brexit and the Global Pandemic as bookends.

For one night only, Bernard will present an experimental performance of the conversations, inviting people to experience a polyphony of voices, fragments of a larger online work that is yet to come.

*The Last Seven Years* has been commissioned by Artangel, and is presented in collaboration with Bold Tendencies.

All ages

Jay Bernard: The Last Seven Years

Jay Bernard

**Maki Namekawa** and **James McVinnie** join forces for a monumental complete presentation of **Philip Glass**' *Piano Etudes*. Written between 1991 and 2012 the twenty solo pieces are a kind of future music, “little diagrams of where his head is at the time” (Nico Muhly), knitting together various musical and historical textures, techniques and atmospheres. In turn haunting and sentimental, this intimate and introspective sequence provides a glimpse into the emotional world of the iconic American composer - a sonic variation on the diaristic form. “If I’m to be remembered for anything,” Glass says, “it might be for the piano music, because people can play it.” The progression of the twenty pieces can be read as an autobiographical record illuminating his fundamental musical ideas and aesthetic sensibilities; at various points the music enters into conversation with composers who have left their mark on Glass, references ranging from the romantics, to jazz and the avant-garde.

James McVinnie is joined for this special occasion by distinguished Japanese pianist Maki Namekawa, a leading figure amongst today’s pianists, and closely associated with Philip Glass. In 2013, she performed the world premiere of the entire cycle of 20 Etudes at Perth International Arts Festival under the participation of Glass himself, and her recording of the work (the first) is widely celebrated. In 2019 - at the age of 82 - he wrote his first Piano Sonata specially for her.

All ages

Philip Glass: The Complete Piano Etudes

Music by Dmitri Shostakovich, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt and Florence Price.

Returning to Bold Tendencies for a second year, Jeneba-Kanneh Mason plays a programme of four works encompassing the angular and experimental; the hazy and melodic; the expansive and emotive.

**Jeneba Kanneh-Mason** (b.2002) is Recipient of the Victoria Robey Scholarship to the Royal College of Music. Jeneba was a Keyboard Category Finalist in BBC Young Musician 2018, as well as winner of the Iris Dyer Piano Prize at The Royal Academy of Music, Junior Academy. Jeneba has performed on BBC Radio 3 and The BAFTAs, and has recorded for the album Carnival with Decca Classics. Kanneh-Mason performed as soloist in Rachmaninov’s *Piano Concerto No. 2* with the Philharmonia Orchestra for the closing concert of Bold Tendencies 2022 season.

**Shostakovich,** *Prelude and Fugue in D Major*  
**Beethoven,** *Sonata No. 7 in D Major*  
**Liszt,** *Vallée d’Obermann*  
**Price,** *Fantasie Nègre No. 1*

All ages

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason

Music by Hadyn, Fanny Mendelssohn, Schumann and Chopin

Award-winning pianist **Isata Kanneh-Mason** returns with a propulsive programme that showcases poetic clarity, musical imagination, and her impressive virtuosity.

**Isata Kanneh-Mason (b.1996)** is an internationally renowned pianist, whose recital repertoire spans from Chopin and Brahms to Gershwin and beyond. In 2022/23 Isata is the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s Artist in Residence. Isata is a Decca Classics recording artist, with her 2019 album, Romance – the Piano Music of Clara Schumann, entering the UK classical charts at No. 1. November 2021, Isata released her first duo album, Muse, in collaboration with her cellist brother Sheku Kanneh-Mason. This was followed in 2021 by Summertime, her album of 20th-century American music. She was an ECHO Rising Star in 21/22, and is also the recipient of the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award and an Opus Klassik award for best young artist. May 2023 sees the release of *Childhood Tales*, which includes the exquisite *Kinderszenen*, featured in this programme.

**Haydn,** *Piano Sonata No. 60 in C major*  
**Fanny Mendelssohn,** *Easter Sonata*  
**Robert Schumann,** *Kinderszenen*  
**Chopin Piano Sonata,** *No. 3 in B minor*

All ages

Isata Kanneh-Mason

Our **Public Rehearsals** are an open invitation to see performers in action in a relaxed, unfiltered environment. Public Rehearsals allow space for those who may feel uncomfortable in traditional performance settings — children, parents/carers, individuals with neurodiversity and/or special educational needs — or those who are curious about experiencing live events for the first time.

This **Public Rehearsal** celebrates the legacy of a definitive composer of crisis and catharsis, **Gustav Mahler**, with his monumental First Symphony. Written for very large orchestral forces, performed here by the **Philharmonia Orchestra**, the subtitle “Titan”, speaks to Mahler’s nickname as the ‘Singer of Nature,’ evoking his lifelong fascination with the natural world. We will be joined, for the first time by Swiss-Australian Conductor, **Elena Schwarz.**

Mahler’s musical pursuit of truth continues to feel relevant in our present moment of crisis; his radical thinking and rich sonic world providing inspiration for generations to come.

This event is free and open to all. Tickets are required for all attendees.

All ages

Public Rehearsal, Gustav Mahler: Symphony No 1

The work of **Gustav Mahler** (1860-1911) - emotionally powerful meditations on human life and its meaning - is musically complex and psychologically disruptive. In celebration of the legacy of a definitive composer of crisis and catharsis, our season ends with Mahler's monumental First Symphony, which he wrote when he was 28. Military fanfares, yodels, nursery tunes and birdsong sound over the hum of the universe. Mahler himself called its finale, “the cry of a wounded heart”: music struggling to overcome darkness —dissonant screams; a flash of lightning from a dark cloud.

Written for very large orchestral forces, it will be performed here by the **Philharmonia Orchestra,** conducted by **Elena Schwarz**. Music of agony and ecstasy, the Symphony’s exploration of the inevitable doom of romanticism mirrored Mahler’s own conflicted state of mind. He wrote of the piece, “My whole life is contained in it: I have set down in it my experience and suffering.” Mahler’s sampling of genres (incorporating scraps of well-known melody, popular songs, street ballads) is evidence of his compositional ingenuity and forethought. Mahler’s pursuit of whole truths continues to feel relevant in our present moment of crisis; his radical thinking, his singing of nature, and his rich sonic world providing inspiration for generations to come.

All ages

Bold Tendencies

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