St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Performs U.S. Premiere of Anna Clyne’s PIVOT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214

St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Performs the U.S. Premiere
of Anna Clyne’s PIVOT, November 19 & 20

“Entertaining, ingenious, and unpredictable.
That’s Anna Clyne.” – BBC Record Review

www.annaclyne.com

St. Louis, MO (October 13, 2021) — On Friday, November 19, 2021 at 10:30am and Saturday, November 20, 2021 at 8:00pm, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) presents the U.S. premiere of composer Anna Clyne’s PIVOT, a SLSO co-commission. The concert, held at Powell Hall, will be led by Maestro David Danzmayr, who makes his SLSO debut conducting the orchestra for PIVOT, Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 “The Great,” and Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy with violinist Simone Porter.

PIVOT (2021) saw its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival’s opening concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in August 2021, conducted by Dalia Stasevska. Clyne was inspired by her numerous experiences at the Edinburgh Festival and says that the variety of fantastic performances across the arts is what she tried to capture in PIVOT, “which, as the title suggests, pivots from one experience to another.” The Pivot is also the former name of The Royal Oak, a 200-year-old folk music venue and pub in Edinburgh. Clyne explains that her five-minute composition “quotes fragments of The Flowers of Edinburgh, a traditional fiddle tune of eighteenth century Scottish lineage that is also prominent in American fiddle music and thus bridges between Edinburgh and St. Louis.” She thanks Aidan O’Rourke for his guidance on folk fiddle bowings and ornaments, which was incorporated into PIVOT.

Of the world premiere, The Scotsman raved, "The slimmed-down, socially distanced BBC Symphony Orchestra sounded rich, detailed and thoroughly convincing in the immense space, nowhere more so than in Anna Clyne’s PIVOT, the concert’s exuberant, sometimes raucous opener, which felt like a fittingly joyful explosion of energy at the return to live events.” The Telegraph agreed, "It takes real skill to compose something musically engaging that is also right for the occasion, and Clyne proved she has it in spades."

Concert Information
Schubert’s Great Symphony
Friday, November 19, 2021 at 10:30am
Saturday, November 20, 2021 at 8:00pm
Powell Hall | 718 N. Grand Blvd. | St. Louis, MO 63103
Tickets: Starting at $15
Link: https://shop.slso.org/6977

ANNA CLYNE: PIVOT [SLSO Co-commission; U.S. Premiere]
MAX BRUCH: Scottish Fantasy
FRANZ SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 9, “The Great”

David Danzmayr, conductor
Simone Porter, violin

Effective September 13 through December 1, 2021, the SLSO requires all patrons to provide upon entrance to Powell Hall: a photo ID AND a vaccination card with name that indicates full vaccination, OR a photo of a complete vaccination card with name, OR a negative RT-PCR test taken within 72 hours of a concert date, OR a negative antigen test taken within 24 hours of a concert date. This policy will be evaluated on an ongoing basis. More information about the SLSO’s health and safety protocols are available at https://slso.org/protocols.

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 opens 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, 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 five 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