“Young composers and players together absolutely dazzled in the big "New Music Now" concert over at the Britten Studio on Friday afternoon.
[Each of the] composer-participants on the Aldeburgh Composition and Performance Course, founded in 1992 by Colin Matthews and Oliver Knussen, seemed to have something engaging to say, assisted by interesting choices of texts for one or two singers alongside the brilliant players of the Britten Pears Contemporary Ensemble.
Colin Matthews introduced the programme and begged forgiveness if he, Helen Grime and Turnage, who later said how much he liked all the participants ("not always the case"), had taken the liberty of inserting their own pieces as well as memorials to Kaija Saariaho and Alexander Goehr. It was good to hear them all so compellingly played; again, the deepest impression probably came from the shortest piece, Saariaho's exquisite setting of a speech by Miranda from Shakespeare's The Tempest.”
— The Arts Desk
“Nights of Jealousy… a headily romantic narration with piano trio (violinist Violetta Suvini, cellist Gabriel Francis-Dehqani and pianist Luke Lally Maguire) and, briefly, wordless soprano (Caroline Bourg, light but radiant in four songs earlier), its most beautiful lyric inspiration reworked as the fourth of the piano impromptus… it was exquisitely delivered here”. — The Arts Desk
“But the highlight of the day might have been the afternoon concert, where the Ubu Ensemble worked through excerpts from Zappa’s last orchestral work, The Yellow Shark, from 1993. Even alongside some intriguing obscurities by his idols Stravinsky, Webern and Varèse, Zappa’s witty, impressionistic, jazz-flecked miniatures more than held their own”.— The Guardian
“Complementing Bridge’s Phantasy, Elgar’s Piano Quintet featured three students, including both violinists, with Jacqueline Monteiro following first violinist Violetta Suvini … the highlight was the daringly slow Adagio, with a real sense of sweep and a powerful combined body of sound”.— The Strad
Royal Philharmonic Society Emily Anderson Violin Prize
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This prize was established in the 1960s following a gift to the RPS in the Will of Emily Anderson, celebrated editor and translator of the letters of Mozart and Beethoven.
