Inner Octaves explores the meeting of Asian and
Western cultures, with music by an Indian composer who
has forged a compelling and distinctive voice in the West
with his native music as a basis, and two Western
composers profoundly influenced by Asian, particularly
Indian, music. The programme is completed by both
traditional and reinterpreted Japanese music.
Shirish
Korde’s unique compositional voice is an authentic
presentation of his thorough Indian, Western classical and jazz
training melded with other diverse musical cultures;
Terry Riley is the father of the
minimalist movement whose music has changed the course of
both classical and rock music;
Nigel Osborne, aside from
being a phenomenally gifted composer, is uniquely placed
among Scottish composers to write for this
ensemble, having studied Indian music over many years and
recently collaborated with sarod virtuoso Wajahat Khan.
Clearly, the potential for new audience engagement with an
ensemble and programme that appeals to such a wide cultural
and musical demographic cannot be underestimated.
Terry Riley (b.1935, USA):
from
Cantos Desiertos (1996, violin and guitar)
Francesco en Paraiso
Terry Riley launched what is now known as
the Minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic In
C in 1964, changing the course of 20th-century music and
strongly influencing the works of Steve Reich, Philip Glass
and John Adams, as well as rock groups like The Who, The
Soft Machine, Curved Air, Tangerine Dream and many others.
Riley travelled
to New Delhi in 1970 to begin studies in Hindustani music
with Pandit Pran Nath. He had been seriously interested in
Indian classical music since attending a 1964 concert given
by Ravi Shankar and Alla Rahka, and had studied tabla
drumming. Riley continued to study kirana vocal music with
Pran Nath, accompanying him in performance on many tours,
until the teacher's death in 1995.
Cantos Desiertos
are part of the cycle The Book of Abbeyozzud (an
invented word). The 26 pieces comprising this cycle are for
guitar, either solo or in combinations with other
instruments. Each has a Spanish title beginning with a
different letter of the alphabet. Cantos Desiertos stand as one more example
of how Riley subtly integrates an extraordinary range of
cultural influences, musical forms, and emotional states
into his music.
Saint Thyagaraja: Brovabarama
(Carnatic violin, tabla)
'Brovabarama', a composition of Saint
Thyagaraja in the raga Bahudari and Adi Talam (rhythm
in 8 beats).
Nigel Osborne (b.1948, UK):
The Birth of Nacitekas for guitar
concertante
New
commission
(guitar, Indian violin, tabla, string
quartet, double bass, percussion)
Born in Manchester, Nigel Osborne is a
composer and music therapist whose studies and work have
taken him all over the world. He studied composition with Witold Rudzinski at the Warsaw Academy, Kenneth Leighton,
and Egon Wellesz, the first pupil of Arnold Schoenberg. His
works have been featured in international festivals and
performed by many leading orchestras and ensembles around
the world. He has had close ties with the Scottish Chamber
Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, London Sinfonietta,
Hebrides Ensemble and Ensemble Intercontemporain, and has
composed extensively for the theatre, with operas and music
theatre works for Glyndebourne, English National Opera, the
Shakespeare Globe, BBC Radio 3.
Nigel Osborne has pioneered the use of
music in therapy and rehabilitation for children who are
victims of conflict. Much of his work was carried out in
the Balkans during and following the wars in that region
during the 1990s, and he has also worked in the Caucasus,
Africa and the Middle East
He is winner of the Opera Prize of Radio
Suisse Romande and Ville de Geneve, the Netherlands
Gaudeamus Prize, the Radcliffe Award and the Koussevitzky
Award of the Library of Congress in Washington. He is
currently Reid Professor of Music at the University of
Edinburgh.
Recent projects include a
collaboration with Indian sarod master Ustad Wajahat Khan
for Scottish Opera’s Five:15 programme
and Rock Music, commissioned by the London
Sinfonietta to open King's Place in London last year,
featuring master musicians from the Ugandan
Dance Academy.
Interval
Minoru Miki (b.1930, Japan):
Ballade for Koto "Nuori verso / A Young
Sprout" arr. Leo Brouwer
(solo guitar)
Minoru Miki) is a Japanese composer and artistic director,
particularly renowned for his use of Japanese (as well as
Chinese and Korean) traditional instruments.
His vast catalogue, where traditional
instruments figure extensively either solo or in various
types of ensemble with or without Western instruments,
includes operas and several types of stage music as well as
orchestral, concerto, chamber and solo music, and music for
films.
A Young Sprout is the first
ballade from volume two (“Spring”) of his four volume
Ballades for koto solo, written for the larger twenty
one string incarnation of Japan’s national instrument.
This piece was used as the main theme
or the film The Realm of the Senses directed by
Nagisa Oshima. Brouwer’s transcription follows the original
very faithfully.
John Blackwood McEwen (1868-1948, Scotland):
"The Harvest of the Sea Salt" and "Butterfly Dance" from
"Old National Dances"
(string quartet)
John Blackwood McEwen was a son of the
borders. His musical language came to successfully
integrate a feeling of Scottish character with a
contemporary international sophistication, helped perhaps by
time spent in France.
Prolific in the writing of chamber music, he produced a
number of so-called "Old National Dances" on themes from
France, Scotland and Japan. These two Japanese dances
provide a scent of the Orient in two richly contrasted
cameos.
Shirish Korde (b.1945,
India/Uganda):
NADA-ANANDA,
concerto for guitar and chamber ensemble
New Commission
