The much-anticipated annual Prom from the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain returned 2021 under the baton of one of the most exciting young conductors on the international scene, Jonathon Heyward. The NYO is joined by superstar violinist Nicola Benedetti, performing Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto, in a programme that includes specially commissioned music by Laura Jurd and the UK premiere of Jessie Montgomery’s Banner. The evening comes to a climax with Beethoven’s Third revolutionary Symphony, the Eroica, which is widely considered a landmark in the transition between the Classical and the Romantic era.PROGRAM: Laura Jurd: Chant; Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2; Montgomery: Banner; Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica‘
Tanglewood Festival 2021 – A.S. Mutter & John Williams
C Major is delighted to present the world premiere performance of John Williams’ Violin Concerto No.2 from the Tanglewood Festival. Williams himself conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the soloist is the work’s dedicatee, Anne-Sophie Mutter. The legendary composer and superstar violinist are old friends and have enjoyed worldwide success together in recent years. Providing an explosive opening to the concert is American composer-violinist Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst (2012) for string orchestra, full of fiery colours and energy and conducted by the BSO’s Music Director Andris Nelsons. He returns to the stage after the Violin Concerto for Copland’s Quiet City, a score that began life as incidental music for a play of the same name, but found fame as a standalone concert piece. With haunting solo parts for trumpet and English horn, this reflective work paints an atmospheric portrait of a city by night. The programme ends with the suite Stravinsky put together in 1919 from his ballet The Firebird, triumphantly premiered in Paris in 1910. PROGRAM Williams: Violin Concerto No. 2 & Across the Stars; Montgomery: Starburst; Copland: Quiet City; Stravinsky: Suite from The Firebird