Celebrating the
Barbican at 40

Benjamin Britten Elegy for solo viola
_{Steve Doman viola}

Six Metamorphoses after Ovid
_{Juliana Koch oboe}

Steve and Juliana have both chosen to perform music tonight by Benjamin Britten, one of the UK's most prominent composers, who lived through an extraordinary period of change in social attitudes towards homosexuality during the mid-to-late 20th century. Though he never spoke outwardly about his sexuality, the life he shared with his 'muse' Peter Pears was no secret, and much of his music bares the influence of his experience in a time when it was illegal to be gay in England.

Daniel Kidane Dappled Light
_{Maxine Kwok & Julián Gil Rodríguez violin}

Daniel Kidane has been a composer on the LSO Soundhub, Panufnik and Jerwood Composer+ schemes. He wrote Dappled Light during lockdown of 2020, and it was the first piece LSO musicians performed to a live audience in July 2020, when venues were able to re-open.

When the Barbican first opened to the public on 3 March 1982, fanfares performed across the foyers heralded the occasion in glorious fashion.

Forty years later, new Fanfares commissioned by the LSO for the anniversary of our Barbican home celebrate this 'modern wonder' in similar style. Seven fanfares in total, performed from the upper levels of the foyers, will resonate through the space for all to hear.

Unconditionally

Ayanna Witter-Johnson wrote Unconditionally as a tribute to her mother. It was originally written for voice, cello and cowbell – with Ayanna singing and playing both instruments (the cowbell with her foot!). The cello part employs techniques including pizzicato (plucking the strings), clapping on the body of the instrument, and col legno (tapping the strings with the stick of the bow). The lyrics describe mother and daughter’s mutual love (‘nothing comes between me and you’) and Ayanna’s recognition of her mother’s generosity (‘the hard roads you walked so I could fly’). The song ends in an ecstatic repeated affirmation: ‘I see you in me’.

_{Note by Kate Hopkins}

Forever

'I composed Forever as an accompanying piece to my song Unconditionally (a song dedicated to my mother). Forever expands upon the gratitude that I express to her for nurturing my musicality in my early childhood.  When I was three years old, my mother was a dancer in a Ghanaian West African Dance Troupe, and I would dance with them on a few of their shows, becoming the ‘baby’ of the troupe.  Those dances are embedded in my soul, especially the grounding drumming rhythms of the Atsiagbekor dance of the Ewe-speaking people of Southern Ghana, Togo and Benin. It is this sound that opens the piece, forever combining my earliest memories of my love for dance and music.'

_{Note by Ayanna Witter-Johnson}

In preparing for this performance, the members of LSO Create have looked at different aspects of Haydn’s The Creation, experimenting with the forming of the elements and the painting of animals in sound. However, we have chosen to base this piece on a more modern, scientific view of creation and derive our work from three extraordinary images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Through these images, it is easy to imagine the forming of matter after the Big Bang, that matter coming together into spiralling galaxies and then onwards to the vastness of the universe. These are the three sections of our Create Creation.

The pieces started off in improvisation that step-by-step came together and coalesced into fixed structures that we could then rehearse and refine. The work has been carried out over the last three days and was recorded at LSO St Luke's this morning, but in fact reflects our many years of working together and the musical life that binds the members of LSO Create and the LSO.

DreamCity is a vibrant, energetic and rhythmically pulsing song without words for string orchestra.  Inspired by conversations with the young string players of the LSO East London Academy (ELA) on their personal experiences of the lockdowns that occurred in 2020, it draws upon the themes of personal creativity, perseverance, uncertainty, dreams, dance and playing games.

The piece was developed through a project delivered in Autumn 2020, which blended creative discussions, online coaching, recording and editing to create a final audio-visual piece. It was re-arranged for live performances for the LSO’s BMW Classics concert from Trafalgar Square in August 2021 (pictured below).

Karakurenai
_{By Andy Akiho}

Rhythm drives us as human beings, and it is fundamental to music – pop, classical, or unclassified. In Karakurenai (2007), by steel pan virtuoso Andy Akiho, our attention is drawn to the ever-shifting rhythmic patterns. When we think we have settled into a groove, the goalposts move and we are forced to readjust our perceptions once again.

Akiho’s original version for steel pan sees the instrument specially prepared with cylindrical magnets, along with the instruction that the performer should use ‘the cardboard tube of a dry cleaner coat hanger’ for the ostinato in the right hand, and a wooden chopstick for the melody in the left. But if this seems meticulously prescriptive, Akiho also notes that the piece can be performed on any combination of instruments and can even include elements of improvisation if desired.

_{Note by Jo Kirkbride}

Sunrise
_{By Yuma and Nahuel Angius-Thomas}

Sunrise was written by Yuma and Nahuel Angius-Thomas for the percussionists of the LSO East London Academy. Yuma and Nahuel are twin brothers from London who love music – between them they play drum kit, percussion, piano and bassoon – and members of the LSO East London Academy.

The title Sunrise refers to the different moments of the sun's journey. The marimba starts with a motivic idea which is then passed throughout all the instruments.

Performing tonight are: Frances Oguh, Kieran Owusu-Bennoah, Nathan-Asher Oriakhi, Yuma Angius-Thomas