WELCOME TO THE 2012 LEICESTER INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL
FROM NICHOLAS DANIEL ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Dear Music Lovers, Festival Friends old and new, supporters, fans and sponsors!
This year’s Festival celebrates the Art of Music and music inspired by art. The art of music itself as expressed by three of the greatest composers: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and four of my favourite contemporary composers: Michael Berkeley, Jonathan Harvey, David Matthews and Sven-Ingo Koch, who have all created music inspired by works of art. Blending these composers together will be an absolutely superb team of musicians I am genuinely proud to bring to Leicester.
The new works include an important World Première for Oboe and String Quartet by Sven-Ingo Koch, one of the brightest up-and-coming stars on the German music scene, sponsored by Kunststiftung NRW. Sven’s new work, called nostalgia is related to Tarkovsky’s film Nostalghia. Michael Berkeley's new Oboe Quintet here receives its second performance by the artists who will have premiered it a month before at the Presteigne Festival. Michael has also collaborated with visual artist Kevin Laycock combining sound and digital visuals in his work Collision. Jonathan Harvey's rightly acclaimed masterpiece Death of Light, Light of Death is based on Grünewald’s masterpiece the Issenheim Altarpiece, and is one of my most treasured pieces for my instrument. Finally, David Matthews' brilliant Concertino for oboe and string quartet is based on Titian's The Flaying of Marsyas and brings a theatricality to the stage that I'm sure you will find exciting.
Our performances will have visual elements designed by the creative and highly original young media artist and musician Ian Dingle. I am also delighted to say that we are collaborating with Phoenix Cinema which will be screening Nostalghia as part of a Tarkovsky season prior to the Festival and also Phil Grabsky’s new and well-reviewed film In Search of Haydn which explores Haydn’s works and his relationship to Mozart and Beethoven .
Our artists this year include my favourite of the brilliant young string quartets, the Carducci Quartet, who will be performing three Haydn string quartets and the Family Concert, as well as popping up in other roles. I shall join them to play the four newest works. The Festival Ensemble will perform chamber works by Beethoven and Mozart, and this year’s superb artists include Festival favourites Priya Mitchell (violin), Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva (piano). Charles is also leading this year’s Masterclass with three young and talented local pianists and Katya will reprise her brilliant performance that I heard at the Wigmore Hall in December of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in the Festival Finale, another great work inspired by art. Expect to be moved and stunned. I am especially delighted to welcome to the ensemble this year two stellar string players with huge international careers, Maxim Rysanov (viola) and Guy Johnston (cello), and the inspiring Helen Sharp (harp), who will join us for Jonathan Harvey’s Death of Light, Light of Death.
This year we are delighted to have secured funding from the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust to support free, yes FREE access to concerts for young people aged between 8 and 25. Please do bring young and interested musicians to our concerts; we will make them very welcome!
The Festival’s incredible Board of Trustees, to whom I owe unending thanks, and I are very excited by the programme for this year, the blend of old and new is very carefully balanced, and the new works carefully chosen. The art aspect of the festival will illuminate and expand our understanding of the works, and at least three of the composers will be with us to talk about their music.
I look forward greatly to seeing you all in September.
Nicholas Daniel
