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London Handel Festival Performs World Premiere of Anna Clyne’s 'In thy Beauty'
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214
The London Handel Festival Performs the
World Premiere of Anna Clyne’s In thy Beauty
March 23 at St. George’s, Hanover Square
“Entertaining, ingenious, and unpredictable. That’s Anna Clyne.”
– BBC Record Review
New York, NY (February 15, 2022) — On Wednesday, March 23, 2022 at 7:00pm, the London Handel Festival presents their 2022 Opening Night Celebration, featuring the world premiere of London-born composer Anna Clyne’s In thy Beauty. Held at St. George’s, Hanover Square—the church at which Handel himself was a regular worshiper—the program additionally includes six triumphant works by the Baroque composer. Laurence Cummings serves as Musical Director for the evening and directs the Academy of Ancient Music and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain.
Anna Clyne’s In thy Beauty (2022) resets text by Henry Purcell for Handel’s coronation anthem, My Heart is Inditing, created for the 1685 coronation of James II. Purcell’s text consists of a shortened adaptation of verses from Psalm 45:1,10,12 and Isaiah 49:23: “My heart is inditing of a good matter: / I speak of the things which I have made unto the King. / Kings daughters were among thy honourable women / Upon thy right hand did stand the Queen in vesture of gold / and the King shall have pleasure in thy beauty. / Kings shall be thy nursing fathers / and queens thy nursing mothers.” Clyne’s new 7-minute composition for soprano, chorus, and Baroque chamber orchestra helps keep the inspiration of Handel alive today.
Clyne has also written two additional choral works recently: The Heart of Night for a cappella chorus (premiere date to be announced, originally postponed from 2020), with a music video coming soon from Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and The Years for choir and orchestra, premiering in May 2022 by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with a text by Stephanie Flesichmann. When Clyne wrote The Years in 2020, she reflected, “The Years is a musical and literary response to the present moment of enforced isolation, whilst it also resonates with any moment in time. I have drawn from my experiences during the pandemic in 2020, which range from quiet solitude, to the alarm of a system being fractured.”
Concert Information
London Handel Festival Opening Night Celebration
Wednesday, March 23, 2022 at 7:00pm
St. George’s, Hanover Square | The Vestry, 2A Mill St | London
Tickets: £15 - £75
Link: www.london-handel-festival.
HANDEL: Zadok the Priest HWV 258
HANDEL: Music for the Royal Fireworks HWV 351
HANDEL: As Pants the Heart HWV 261
HANDEL: The Cuckoo Concert HWV 295
HANDEL: Concerto Grosso Op.6 No. 11
ANNA CLYNE: In thy beauty [World premiere]
HANDEL: The King Shall Rejoice HWV 260
Laurence Cummings, Musical Director
Academy of Ancient Music
National Youth Choir of Great Britain Chamber Choir
About Anna Clyne
London-born Anna Clyne is a GRAMMY-nominated composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Described as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods” in a New York Times profile and as “fearless” by NPR, Clyne is one of the most acclaimed and in-demand composers of her generation, often embarking on collaborations with innovative choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians.
Clyne has been commissioned by a wide range of ensembles and institutions, including BBC Radio 3, BBC Scottish Symphony, Britten Sinfonia, Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Houston Ballet, London Sinfonietta, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and the Southbank Centre. Her work has been championed by such world-renowned conductors as Pablo Heras-Casado, Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Andre´ de Ridder, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osmo Va¨nska¨, and Marin Alsop, who praised Clyne, stating: “Anna Clyne is someone I look to for great music. It’s always emotional and driven by her heart, but skillfully composed.”
From 2010–2015, Clyne served as a Mead Composer-in-Residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Music Director Riccardo Muti lauded Clyne as “an artist who writes from the heart, who defies categorization, and who reaches across all barriers and boundaries. Her compositions are meant to be played by great musicians and heard by enthusiastic audiences no matter what their background.” She has also been in residence with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre national d’I^le-de- France, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Berkeley Symphony, and National Sawdust. Clyne serves as the mentor composer for the Orchestra of St Luke's DeGaetano Composer Institute. She is currently serving a three-year residency as Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, through the 2020-2021 season, including plans for a series of new works commissioned over three years.
Several upcoming projects explore Clyne’s fascination with visual arts, including Color Field for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, inspired by the artwork of Mark Rothko, and Between the Rooms, a film with choreographer Kim Brandstrup and LA Opera. Her elegy Within Her Arms opened the New York Philharmonic’s 2021-2022 season, the orchestra’s first full New York program since the pandemic began. Other recent and upcoming premieres include PIVOT, which opened the 2021 Edinburgh International Festival; A Thousand Mornings for the Fidelio Trio; a saxophone concerto for Jess Gilliam; Strange Loops for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s; Fractured Time for the Kaleidoscope Ensemble; Overflow for wind ensemble, inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson, composed for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra; and Woman Holding a Balance, a film collaboration with Orchestra of St. Luke's and artist Jyll Bradley; and In the Gale for cello and bird song, created with and performed by Yo-Yo Ma.
Clyne composed a trilogy of Beethoven-inspired works that premiered in 2020 for Beethoven’s 250th anniversary: Stride for string orchestra, inspired by Beethoven's Sonata Pathe´tique, premiered by the Australian Composers Orchestra; Breathing Statues, premiered by the Calidore String Quartet; and Shorthand for solo cello and string quintet premiered by The Knights at Caramoor and in a version for cello and string orchestra by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra.
Other recent premieres include Sound and Fury, first performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Pekka Kuusisto in Edinburgh; and her Rumi-inspired cello concerto, DANCE, premiered with Inbal Segev at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, led by Cristian Ma?celaru. DANCE was also recently recorded by Segev and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Marin Alsop, which was released to critical acclaim on AVIE Records and has garnered more than six million plays on Spotify.
Clyne is the recipient of the 2016 Hindemith Prize; a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; awards from Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation; and prizes from ASCAP and SEAMUS. She was nominated for the 2014 Times Breakthrough Award (UK).
Clyne’s music is represented on AVIE Records, Cantaloupe Music, Cedille, MajorWho Media, New Amsterdam, Resound, Tzadik, and VIA labels. In October 2020, AVIE Records released Clyne's Mythologies, a portrait album featuring the works Masquerade, This Midnight Hour, The Seamstress, Night Ferry, and <<rewind<<, recorded live by the BBC Symphony Orchestra with soloists Jennifer Koh and Irene Buckley and conductors Marin Alsop, Sakari Oramo, Andrew Litton, and Andre´ de Ridder. Recent releases include DANCE featuring Inbal Segev, Marin Alsop, and the London Philharmonic; The Violin, an album of her works for multi-tracked violins with animations by artist Josh Dorman; Blue Moth, an album of her instrumental music for ensemble and tape; Night Ferry with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti; and Prince of Clouds featuring Jennifer Koh and Jaime Laredo with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra on Cedille Records. Prince of Clouds was nominated for a 2015 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Composition and Night Ferry was nominated the same year for Best Engineered Album (Classical).
Clyne's music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. www.boosey.com/clyne.
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Photo Credit: Christina Kernohan
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