Premiere of James Burton’s “The Lost Words” at Tanglewood

James Burton’s latest work, “The Lost Words”, gets its premiere at Tanglewood on July 21st, with inclusion also in the ever-popular Tanglewood on Parade concert on July 23rd. The 30 minute 12-movement work written for upper voices and orchestra is a co-commission between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Hallé Orchestra, and is based on the phenomenally successful book by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris. Each movement takes its text from one of MacFarlane’s poems, or ‘Spells’. In Tanglewood the Boston Symphony Children’s Choir will perform the work with piano, and in July of 2020 the Hallé Children’s Choir will premiere the full orchestral version. Both premieres will be conducted by James.

Read more about the Tanglewood performance here.

Before the full Hallé premiere, two Spells will be performed on 25th August at the BBC Proms in a concert dedicated to the Lost Words, performed by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and Southbank Sinfonia, conducted by Jessica Cottis.

James’s catalogue with Edition Peters is here.

Eriks Esenvalds premiere at the Grant Park Music Festival

The Pleiades, commission for orchestra and chorus

Eriks is in Chicago this week to hear his new work The Pleiades, commissioned by the Grant Park Music Festival. Performed by the Grant Park orchestra and chorus and conducted by Carlos Kalmar, the multi-movement work takes the Pleiades star constellation as its theme, and uses stories and myths from native American culture. See more about this at Eriks own website here. It is not the first time the stars and sky have fascinated him: the piece called Stars has become a staple of many choirs concert programmes, and in recent years the Nordic Light multimedia symphony has enjoyed success.

The Grant Park Festival coincides with this year’s Chorus America convention in Chicago, and Eriks will take a seat as panellist on a discussion entitled Creating Music in Challenging Times. Following his time in Chicago Eriks will go on to St John’s Newfoundland, Canada to be part of the Podium on the Edge: Singing from Sea to Sea to Sea convention.

Eriks website is www.eriksesenvalds.com