Jerwood Composer+ Showcase: Anselm McDonnell - The Expanded Violin

12 October 2024 21:00

Performers: Mira Benjamin - violin; Larissa O’Grady - violin ; Chihiro Ono - violin ; Amalia Young - violin

A deep dive into the potential of the violin, expanding and enhancing the instrument through microtonality, electronics, and the sound of multiple violins.

'Rusted Sugar' enters the world of intervals smaller than a semitone, taking traditional tonal chord progressions and setting them into a landscape of quartertones, sweet synthesisers, and funk rhythms. 'Swept Through the Floods' and 'Lamento' present powerful emotional journeys, Judith Ring following the turbulent ebbs and flows of environmental flooding disasters in the former, and the latter Kalevi Aho’s soulful tribute to the young Finnish violinist Sakari Laukola. Leo Chadburn’s 'De La Salle (Violins)' occupies a calmer environment: a drifting soundscape that merges four violins into one united voice.

Ian Wilson’s 'Primavera' takes the violin quartet in a different direction, creating a texture of agile and nervous echoes in response to paintings by the American artist Cy Twombly. Also responding to visual stimuli but turning again to the world of detail and small intervals and Saariaho’s 'Nocturne' is an intimate tribute to Lutosławski. McDonnell’s new work 'Genesis Cradle' closes the concert, this time exploring alternative tunings through Just Intonation – intervals that are tuned to fit with the naturally occurring relationships in the harmonic series.

Presented by LSO Discovery.

LSO Jerwood Composer+ is generously supported by Jerwood Foundation. The Expanded Violin is generously supported by Marchus Trust, the Hinrichsen Foundation and the Vaughan Williams Foundation.

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Judith Ring's Swept through the Floods (2023) , performed by Larissa O'Grady at the Contemporary Music Centre.

Programme

Anselm McDonnell - Rusted Sugar
Kaija Saariaho - Nocturne
Kalevi - Aho Lamento
Leo Chadburn - De La Salle (Violins)
Interval
Ian Wilson - Primavera from ‘Quattro Stagioni’
Chiyoko Szlavnics - Quick Figure (for Marc Sabat)
Chiyoko Szlavnics - This is Only Here. This is Only Now.
Judith Ring - Swept Through the Floods
Anselm McDonnell - Genesis Cradle (world premiere)