The Composers' Ensemble, recently hailed as Europe's most innovative chamber group, will perform tomorrow at the University's West Road Concert Hall. The programme includes music by the Spanish composer Roberto Gerhard, who held a Fellowship at King's College as a political exile from Franco's Spain.
The Composers' Ensemble, recently hailed as Europe's most innovative chamber group, will perform tomorrow at the University's West Road Concert Hall. The programme includes music by the Spanish composer Roberto Gerhard, who held a Fellowship at King's College as a political exile from Franco's Spain.
For this concert in Cambridge, the Composers' Ensemble will be comprised of 11 wind players. It will be a unique opportunity to hear old and modern masterpieces including Stravinsky's famous Wind Octet and suitably, for the newly refurbished West Road Concert hall, his 'Fanfare for a New Theatre'.
Also in the programme is Gerhard's Wind Quintet (1928), composed in homage to Schoenberg, under whom Gerhard studied composition in Vienna and Berlin. Gerhard sheltered in Cambridge after the defeat of the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. The minor research fellowship he was offered at King's College probably saved his life. Following his death, his music was rather neglected. But a wave of new recordings and publications appearing since the celebrations of the centenary of his birth in 1996 has re-awakened interest in and enthusiasm for Gerhard's music - not least in Spain where, during the Franco regime, his music was officially ignored.
The work of another former Cambridge Fellow, John Woolrich, will also be performed. Currently the Britten Sinfonia's Composer in Residence, Woolrich has a strong reputation as one of the finest living British composers. John Woolrich has also been responsible for putting together the imaginative programme for this concert.
Lastly there will be a chance to experience one of Janacek's most beautiful chamber music works, 'Mladi' for wind sextet. Written by Janacek during his 70th year, it is a work about mortality and reminiscences of youth.
The concert is presented by Kettle's Yard and the Friends of Kettle's Yard, with support from the Roberto Gerhard Foundation.
Thursday 20 February 2003, 8pm (doors open at 7.30pm), West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge.
Tickets cost £10 (students and children £7) and are available from the Corn Exchange Box Office, Tel: 01223 357851 and on the door at West Road Concert Hall.
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