Since 2013, LSO Futures has been championing new and contemporary music, both of our time and from decades before. Its philosophy revolves around big ideas and healthy risks whilst nurturing fresh talent from the LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme and beyond. LSO Futures concerts always include first performances of brand new music from composers making waves in the UK today, along with pieces by composers who broke boundaries with their music in their own time.
Principal Guest Conductor François-Xavier Roth has been at the heart of Futures since its conception, being no stranger when it comes to pushing the boundaries of an orchestra with contemporary music. He says: ‘What is so exciting about LSO Futures is the celebration of the novelties today’s and earlier compositions. The concert is an opportunity to hear voices of modern music, and allows the Orchestra to open up and take some healthy risk. There’s a sense of freedom for the audience and the players. It’s a rich project and I love it.’
In this year’s LSO Futures concert, on Sunday 28 May at the Barbican, we hear world premieres from Colin Matthews and Jonathan Woolgar, a returning work from Mercury Prize nominee Cassie Kinoshi, and two 20th-century classics from Lili Boulanger and Béla Bartók. Five very different voices, but we think you’ll want to hear what they have to say.
Cassie Kinoshi’s Fanfares
Specially commissioned for and performed at our concert celebrating the 40th birthday of the Barbican in 2022, Fanfares actually comprises seven different fanfares. Cassie calls the sound ‘pretty fat’, from the help of four tubas and a brass ensemble doubling up on all parts. Cassie is one of two composers in this concert to have come through the Panufnik Composers Scheme (2018/19), which she says allowed her to ‘explore what I always wanted to do’ in orchestral writing.
Lili Boulanger’s D’un soir triste
Written in 1918 D’un soir triste is a beautiful and haunting piece of music characterised by its use of rich harmonies, lush string writing and mournful melody passed between different sections of the orchestra – a moving piece showcasing the talent and technicality to Boulanger’s writing.
Jonathan Woolgar’s Symphonic Message: “Wach auf!”
The first world premiere of the evening comes from composer Jonathan Woolgar. As a member of the Panufnik Composers Scheme in 2019/20, he developed a three-minute composition for full orchestra, which was workshopped by the LSO and François-Xavier Roth. Following that workshop, he was commissioned through the Scheme to keep developing his work into a five-minute piece, and we share the result for the very first time in this concert! The piece is a wake up call (Wach auf!) that Jonathan describes as ‘starting with a blaze of glory that collapses and spends the rest of the piece working its way back to that glory’.
‘It was an absolute treat to work with François-Xavier Roth. He’s obviously a skilled hand when it comes to new music and he can pick up things that I can’t pick up about the piece so it’s been a wonderful process. The workshops are so useful because all the things that were so perfect and crystalline in your head suddenly become very real and gooey and fragile … you can go over a piece a hundred times in your head and it’ll never be the same as being able to hear it instantly.’
Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste
Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste balances craftsmanship and poetic invention with a rare judgement. It stands out as one of the most compelling and eloquent of 20th-century masterpieces. His late works in particular present an intense and often profoundly moving experience for the listener.
Colin Matthew’s Mosaics
The ‘Brunel of contemporary music’ and Panufnik Composers Scheme composition director Colin Matthews brings us his brand new work Mosaics for its world premiere to close the evening.
‘Very suddenly in 2020 commissions and performances just dried up and I thought, well, I’ve got to keep myself going. So I plunged into writing an orchestral piece off the top of my head that became a series of 11 studies. It was a sort of new, almost a new way of composing for me and the whole thing has become a 25-minute work … Then I think middle of last year, the LSO just asked me what I’ve been working on so I showed them the piece and they said, ‘right, we’ll do it’. Then François was keen, he and I have a great relationship and he’s been the star of this thing right from the beginning. He’s committed himself to it and been wonderful advocate for it.’
Hear In Concert
Header image © Mark Allan
