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sinfonia ViVA with Colin Currie

Saturday 2nd October 2010 at 7.30pm
Djanogly Recital Hall, Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
Tickets: £15 (£12 concessions) from the Box Office on 0115 846 7777
Online booking available

Colin Currie, percussion - photo credit Chris Dawes

sinfonia ViVA directed by Benedict Holland renews its long association with the amazing talent that is Colin Currie in this exciting programme of vibrant classics.

Commissioned to write a ballet on any theme of his choosing for a forthcoming music festival at the Library of Congress and underwritten to the tune of $1000 by musical philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Stravinsky gravitated to Greek mythology and elected to centre his composition on Apollo, the leader of the muses. Originally titled Apollon Musagète (Apollo, conductor of the Muses), the work was begun in 1927 and premiered the following year. The stateside production choreographed by Adolph Boam was quickly surpassed in Europe by that of George Ballanchine which featured Stravinsky himself conducting, and it was this first collaboration between Ballanchine and Stravinsky by which the work achieved wide popularity. Stravinsky would later make small changes to the score in 1947, and Ballanchine a major revision in 1978 which omitted the prologue. Tonight's version is that for string orchestra.

Kurt Schwertsik is the Austrian-born founder of the Third Viennese School and composer of orchestral, stage, vocal and chamber music. Colin Currie performed the premiere of the Marimba Concerto in London in February 2009. The work's title Now You Hear Me, Now You Don't reflects the coming-and-going part of the marimba throughout the concerto – in places throughout the five movements, the instrument is prominent while in others it fades into the background with just a base line or even single notes. Colin Currie talks about the piece here [external link].

Mozart's Divertimento K136 is one of a collection of three divertimenti he wrote in Spring 1772. Its warmly resonant themes have a youthful nature, and the piece displays a lively energy.

Supported by Rolls-Royce plc, Orchestras Live and Arts Council England