In his keynote speech at the State of the Arts conference in Manchester last week, in a list of notable cultural things happening this year, Ed Vaizey included:
an epic new choral work from composer Jonathan Harvey to be performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Which was a coincidence because, only a few days before, the person behind the @thinkwalsall Twitter account mentioned to me that Jonathan Harvey is from Sutton Coldfield.
I’d not heard of Jonathan Harvey before but I did some quick digging around and here’s his website and his Wikipedia page. Very recently the BBC put on a weekend of music, film and discussion celebrating his music at the Barbican.
If you’d like a listen to some of his work, here’s ‘Madonna of Winter and Spring” for orchestra, synthesizers and live electronics, from 1986.
The man behind @thinkwalsall – c’est moi.
Nice post. And, making a nice circle, I wasn’t aware of the new choral work performed by the CBSO. I’m not a huge fan of choral work, but I like Harvey’s work so may have to go along and wave some flags for Birmingham.
Jonathan’s music is wonderful, and he has such a profound generosity when it comes to sharing and engaging with musicians and audiences. He often reflects on his West Midlands roots. It is also worth noting that he is extremely unwell and suffers from motor neurone disease as this recent article by Tom Service explains. The UK premiere of Weltethos will be performed by the CBSO, CBSO Chorus, CBSO Youth Chorus and CBSO Children’s Chorus at Symphony Hall on 21 June 2012 as the opening night of the London 2012 Festival.