Diary

Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Residency : 1st - 14th June 2013 : Concert 1

Recital Hall, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts

Wednesday 05 June 2013, 20:00

Psappha's opening residency concert includes three Hong Kong premieres. Anthony Payne's brilliant picture of insect life - mayflies live but a day, causing Payne to think about different time scales, from fluttering, buzzing insect activity to cosmic changelessness.

The Hong Kong premiere of Steve Reich 'Double Sextet' features the regular compact ensemble for new music - piano and percussion, flute and clarinet, violin and cello - playing with and against a recorded double of itself. This is classic Reich: propulsive from the get-go, driving through wondrous harmonic landscapes, and with a haunting melodic poetry that is this composer's own.

Torstensson's witty mini-concerto for violin - what its Swedish-Dutch composer calls a 'self-portrait' by the instrument is our third HK premiere of the evening. The performance ends with Webern's arrangement of his teacher's sumptuous 'Chamber Concerto' originally arranged to be a companion piece for the original performances of 'Pierrot Lunaire'

Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Residency : 1st - 14th June 2013 : Concert 2

Concert Hall, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts

Monday 10 June 2013, 20:00

The second concert of Psappha's Hong Kong residency marks the culmination of a series of intensive workshops with the Academy's composers. Nine world premieres will be given in the Academy's state of the art concert hall.

The programme begins with performance students joining the ensemble in Varese's 1923 work 'Octandre' in which nervous rhythmic motifs unexpectedly accumulate from solo passages into massive, weapon-like pounding in shattering, prismatic colors.

Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Residency : 1st - 14th June 2013 : Concert 3

Recital Hall, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts

Thursday 13 June 2013, 20:00

The HK premiere of 'Scale 9' by Sean Friar has a smart humour about it, the title referring not to any musical scale but to a psychological measure of manic behaviour.

Written using a small pencil and some paper given by a sympathetic guard, Messiaen's wrote his 'Quartet for the End of Time' in Stalag VIII-A, a German prisoner of war camp. The work was premiered by Messiaen himself at the piano with three other prisoners on 15th January 1941 using decrepit instruments to an audience of about 400 fellow prisoners and guards. Messiaen later recalled: "Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension."

New works for Cimbalom

Psappha Studio, Withington Manchester

Sunday 30 June 2013, 17:00

Writing for the Hungarian cimbalom has never been an easy task due to its highly unusual and unique layout. Stravinsky learnt to play it himself and Peter Maxwell Davies wrote at the instrument.

Over the past 4 months six keen and talented young composers have been working with Psappha's percussionist, Tim Williams, to learn more about the cimbalom and its workings culminating in six new works.

This special concert at Psappha's Studio in Withington will be a social event as well as a short concert that will be repeated as many times as necessary for our guests.

If you would like to join us please email: boxoffice@psappha.com requesting a ticket.

Tickets are free but stricktly limited so please make contact early!