Skip to main content.

sinfonia ViVA with Freddy Kempf

Tuesday 16th March 2010 at 7.30pm
Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham
Tickets: £9 to £30
Box Office: 0115 989 5555
Online booking available

Freddy Kempf, credit Rio Hashimoto

Free pre-concert talk at 6.30pm in the auditorium: Freddy Kempf in conversation.

... followed by AFTER:hours late-night concert: 9.40pm - 10.15pm in the auditorium. Free admission to sinfonia ViVA bookers. £3 for non-bookers - tickets available on the door only. Programme as follows:

"Kempf has the maturity and musicality with which to harness his gifts to artistic ends. He has the fearless exuberance of youth. He is prepared to take risks, a readiness that brings spontaneous combustion to his playing; but he has sensitivity, too." - The Telegraph

The irrepressable talent of Freddy Kempf (piano) joins with sinfonia ViVA and Principal Conductor André de Ridder to bring a fabulous selection of classics to the Royal Concert Hall in this first concert featuring works by Anna Meredith as sinfonia ViVA's Composer in the House: a Royal Philharmonic Society and PRS for Music Foundation initiative.

Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin, begun before World War 1 and reworked into an orchestral version after hostilities had ended, has movements dedicated to the memory of individual soldiers he met whilst serving as an ambulance driver (himself wounded in the course of his work) during the conflict. Although intended as a memorial, it is a life-affirming work with brightness to balance the emotive subtext of the title.

That Schumann's one and only Piano Concerto (literally - he started several that were never completed) became so popular is in part due to his wife Clara. It was her encouragement that led him in 1845 to take his original 1841 composition Phantasie and add to it to give the resulting Piano Concerto in A minor, Op54. The work premiered in 1846.

On next to fringeflower, the first of the evening's two pieces by sinfonia ViVA's Composer in the House Anna Meredith. Anna is a composer of acoustic and electronic music as well as a performer, animateur and drum teacher, and has previously had her work performed at the BBC Proms.

Finally, to Beethoven and his Symphony No.2 of 1802. At this time, he knew his deafness was becoming more pronounced and his emotions were in flux as a result, as evidenced by the 'Heiligenstadt Testament' - a letter he wrote to his brothers in the October of that year (but not read until after his death) in which he spoke of his despair at his affliction and contemplation of suicide, but also his realisation that he had reason to go on, with music still to write. The piece can be seen as both a pointer and a transition in his composition: the mighty 'Eroica' would follow as Symphony No.3.

And for those night-owls amongst the attendees, there's a special AFTER:hours late-night concert from 9.40pm to 10.15pm (approx.) featuring the Orchestra and soloist Thomas Gould (violin/electric violin) in a programme including Charged - the second of the evening's works by Composer in the House Anna Meredith - and Nico Muhly's Seeing is Believing.

Supported by sinfonia ViVA, Britten-Pears Foundation and Arts Council England. The AFTER:hours concert is additionally supported by Orchestras Live and Rolls-Royce plc. Composer in the House is a Royal Philharmonic Society and PRS for Music Foundation initiative.