The musikfest berlin is primarily a festival for orchestral concerts with only a few ensemble or chamber music concerts enriching the festival’s artistic outline. Winrich Hopp, the festival’s Artistic Director, has dedicated this year’s programme to Boulez and Berio. Amongst others reasons his attraction to these composers has been their way of handling folk music. This has led him to invite The Duke Quartet with Kevin Volans’ string quartet, considering Volans’ own background and biography in terms of folk music.
Volans investigated various music traditions ranging from South Africa to Ethiopia and Egypt, and made them the subject of his compositional activities. As one of the essential media for his creative reflections, he chose the ultimate classical European chamber music genre, the string quartet. In the quartets, he deals with African-inspired material – although in other genres, he has long since distanced himself from the cliché image of the ‘African Minimalist.’ In his latest quartet, however, he follows a different path. His interest in Minimal painting and architecture furnished him with the basic idea, the thematic material of this work is concentrated around a single sonority.
”When Shiva is depicted dancing, he appears in a flaming circle. You get the impression that he always dances in that position, and never moves away from it. I like that.”
Kevin Volans
On August 27 at the Edinburgh International Festival 2010 the world premiere performance ofSymphony: Daar kom die Alibama by Kevin Volans will take place at Usher Hall.
Volans has incorporated African folk song into his new work, Symphony: Daar Kom die Alibama, commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival and made possible by Donald MacDonald. Having taken up his post as Principal Conductor with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 2009, Robin Ticciati makes his Festival debut at this concert.
Programme:
Robin Ticciati Conductor
Katia and Marielle Labèque Piano
Rebel Les Elémens
Kevin Volans Symphony: Daar Kom die Alibama (EIF commission, World Premiere)
Poulenc Concerto for two pianos
Bizet Symphony in C
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