The first Hear and Now of the 大象传媒 SSO鈥檚 15/16 season pairs two friends who are major voices in British contemporary music: Oliver Knussen and Ryan Wigglesworth. Glasgow-born Knussen鈥檚 music is famous for its jewel-like brightness, precision, and playfulness: Music for a Puppet Court spins variations on a16th century puzzle canon, using two small orchestras (and an alarm clock), while the whirling Flourish is an established orchestral favourite.
Composer-conductor Ryan Wigglesworth dedicated his recent Violin Concerto to Knussen, a work which 鈥渕anages to fulfil all the conventions of a classical concerto without succumbing to any of its clich茅s鈥� (The Guardian). The 大象传媒 SSO鈥檚 Leader Laura Samuel is the soloist, while soprano Claire Booth sings both Wigglesworth鈥檚 Augenlieder - settings of poems by Robert Browning, Egon Schiele, Arthur Rimbaud and John Berryman - and songs from Knussen鈥檚 opera Where The Wild Things Are, his celebrated version of Maurice Sendak鈥檚 famous children鈥檚 book.
