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Few have influenced music like Frank Zappa. Now the 20th century titan becomes the focus of a ´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra Total Immersion Day, recorded last Saturday at the Barbican Centre. Ever the experimentalist, Zappa’s music explores influences as diverse as classical modernism, free improvisation, rock and roll virtuosity and cultural satire. Expect the unexpected in an evening of performances where Brad Lubman conducts the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SO and the Guildhall's Ubu Ensemble, led by Simon Wills, explores the ensemble music.

Following a diagnosis of terminal cancer, in 1991 Zappa agreed to appear as a featured composer at the Frankfurt Festival the next year. What started as a cautious collaboration turned into an inspired one when Zappa started working with the German contemporary music orchestra, Ensemble Modern. The concerts that followed have gone down in history, thanks in part to The Yellow Shark. The Ubu Ensemble performs works that rhapsodize on Zappa’s intense, disciplined interest in classical counterpoint, and by the composer’s beloved Edgard Varèse and Igor Stravinsky.

For Frank Zappa, the symphony orchestra was the consummate vehicle for musical storytelling. Brad Lubman leads this live streamed evening culminating in Zappa’s acknowledged orchestral masterpieces. In 1983, Zappa hired the London Symphony Orchestra and recorded 90 minutes of his freest, most imaginative and most wickedly entertaining music with the ensemble. Included on the album was the tear-away invention of Pedro’s Dowry, a frantic piece that obsesses over repeated fragments with all the primary-coloured brilliance of a cartoon soundtrack. This rampant hyperactivity finds the perfect counterbalance in Sad Jane, which is presented alongside its companion piece Bob in Dacron.

Mo ‘n Herb’s Vacation is one of Zappa’s most accomplished large-scale orchestral works. Within its three-movement, theme and variations structure, beauty and aggression mingle, paradoxically embodying the sort of ‘sophisticated’ musical archetype Zappa loved to mock.

Presented by Andrew McGregor with Zappa proselytizer Ben Watson.

Recorded at the Barbican on 19th March 2022.

Igor Stravinsky: Variations 'Aldous Huxley in memoriam'
Frank Zappa: Pedro’s Dowry
Frank Zappa: Bob in Dacron / Sad Jane
´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra
Brad Lubman (conductor)

2025
Igor Stravinsky Pribaoutki
Edgard Varèse Intégrales
Frank Zappa The Perfect Stranger
Ubu Ensemble
Simon Wills (conductor)

2100
Frank Zappa from The Yellow Shark:
The Dog Breath Variations / Uncle Meat: Main Title Theme
Outrage at Valdez
Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen’s Church)
Ubu Ensemble
Simon Wills (conductor)

2120
Frank Zappa: Mo 'N Herb's Variations
´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra
Brad Lubman (conductor)