Thea Musgrave at the Leicester International Music Festival

Thea Musgrave at the Leicester International Music Festival

The Leicester International Music Festival will present Thea Musgrave as its featured composer, honouring the composer’s ninetieth birthday and joining the continuing celebrations in Europe and the US of Musgrave at 90. The festival, which runs from September 20-22, will feature selections of Musgrave’s chamber music in five concerts. The inclusion of Musgrave’s music fits into the weekend’s larger focus on music by composers who moved to the United States during their careers, composers including Dvořák, Martinů, Rachmaninov and Bartók.

Festival Director Nicholas Daniels will perform the complete chamber works for oboe across the weekend: Night Windows in Concert 1; Niobe in Concert 2; Cantilena in Concert 3; and Dawn and Whirlwind (a new work for Daniels) in Concert 4 (alongside an eclectic group of Musgrave miniatures). Daniels has said of Musgrave’s work that it ‘shows her absolute mastery and total professionalism’; ‘when you play a piece of Thea’s it’s almost impossible to believe that she doesn’t play the instrument herself, so fluid and natural is her instrumental and vocal understanding and her complete professionalism.’

The festival is held at Leicester’s New Walk Museum and Art Gallery. Visit here to view the full concert listing and purchase tickets. Musgrave’s music will also be the focus of the Stockholm International Composer Festival 2018, November 22-25, with four concerts exclusively of her music. Among the concerts are included the world premiere of the string orchestra version of Night Windows, and several Scandinavian premieres (details can be found here).

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