BR Symphony Orchestra: Anderson / ShostakovichManfred Honeck (conductor), Julia Bullock (soprano)
This event is in the past.
Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck and American soprano Julia Bullock present Julian Anderson’s Exiles. Remembrances and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5 together with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra with three concerts in the Isarphilharmonie. Both of these works represent a unique take on political and social topics that are very much relevant today.
This event is in the past.
Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck and American soprano Julia Bullock present Julian Anderson’s Exiles. Remembrances and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5 together with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra with three concerts in the Isarphilharmonie. Both of these works represent a unique take on political and social topics that are very much relevant today.
- Julia Bullock, soprano
- Bavarian Radio Chorus
- Manfred Honeck, conductor
- Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
The world premiere of Julian Anderson’s half-hour long work Exiles. Remembrances with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra was originally scheduled for January 2022 and had to be cancelled due to Corona – an ironic twist of fate, as the work, which was written in 2020/2021, has the experience of living through a pandemic as one of its themes.
Anderson was born in London in 1967 to a Jewish family and himself lost relatives in the Shoah. In his oratorical meditation on leaving home and the desire to return, he reflects on the Babylonian captivity of the people of Israel and on the Holocaust. The work includes a homage to the courageous American Varian Fry, who helped thousands of Europeans escape from the Nazis. The work’s other topic is Anderson’s own experience of lockdown-enforced isolation.He was this year awarded the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, which is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of Music.
With Exiles. Remembrances, the American soprano Julia Bullock makes her debut with the Bavarian Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra.
Manfred Honeck combines Anderson’s work with Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5, an equally political work that emerged in a period of isolation and withdrawal and premiered in Leningrad in 1937. The composer, who, hounded by the Stalinist cultural bureaucracy, feared for his livelihood, penned the work with the aim of salvaging his artistic reputation. The result was music with a humane message and subtle ambiguity that skilfully defied the adverse circumstances of the time. Shostakovich himself later confessed: “This is not an apotheosis. You have to be a complete moron not to hear that.”
Programme
- Julian Anderson: Exiles. Remembrances for voice and orchestra
- Dimitri Shostakovich: Symphony No 5 in D minor, Op 47
Introduction (in German language) at 6:45 PM, free admission with a valid concert ticket
