BBC Philharmonic premiere Gregson Oboe Concerto in Leeds
8th January 2020
On February 8, Jennifer Galloway and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra will give the world premiere performance of A Vision in a Dream, a new oboe concerto from Edward Gregson, at Leeds Town Hall. The concerto, based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem Kubla Khan, is the latest event in a prosperous winter for the composer, with the release of a critically acclaimed recording of his Euphonium Concerto by David Childs; receiving an Ivors Composer Award in December for his choral-orchestral work The Salamander and the Moonraker; and having featured prominently at this year RNCM Festival of Brass to mark his 75th birthday.
Gregson writes about his new work:
‘The concerto nevertheless follows the main narrative of the poem, the soloist acting as both narrator and character portraying. To this end, quotations from the poem have been incorporated into the score and parts so that all the musicians will have a sense of the drama nature of the poem underpinning the musical narrative. Like the poem, the concerto is a highly dramatic work, and although the Oboe is undoubtedly the chief protagonist in the drama, the role that the solo percussionist plays is of great importance.’
This latest premiere marks Gregson’s fifty-year career as a composer and a long and prosperous relationship with the Manchester-based orchestra. Ben Gernon conducts and presents along side the concerto Tchaikovsky’s ravishing Romeo and Juliet overture and Berlioz’s visionary work Symphony Fantastique.
Book Tickets
