Pulitzer winner needs 32 horns for his next premiere

Pulitzer winner needs 32 horns for his next premiere

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norman lebrecht

March 19, 2015

Apply below.

Don’t forget long trousers and anti-midge cream.

Oh, and you won’t get paid.

Press release:

john luther adams
HORN PLAYERS REQUIRED FOR WORLD PREMIERE OF A NEW WORK FROM PULITER PRIZE/GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING ‘ECO-COMPOSER’ JOHN LUTHER ADAMS AT EAST NEUK FESTIVAL ON 5 JULY  2015

The East Neuk Festival  (ENF) is sounding the bugle far and wide for a herd (?) of horn players looking for outdoor musical adventures and challenges in rural Fife this summer.

Following its hugely successful 2013 UK premiere of John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit  for 30 percussionists,  ENF  has commissioned Across the Distance for massed horns for the finale of this year’s Festival.  Led by SCO’s highly acclaimed young principal horn, Alec Frank-Gemill, and seven other top professional horn players from around the UK, the performance line-up is 32.

Across The Distance will be performed for a promenade audience in and around the parkland and gardens of the glorious Cambo House and estate situated just south of St Andrews in the East Neuk of Fife. ENF director Svend Brown enthuses about the prospect of this unique performance: “The idea is that a ring of horn players will start by surrounding the audience, and as the piece progresses they move further and further away until the last notes are heard from 50 or 100 metres away… ‘across the distance’. If Inuksuit was anything to go by, this will be a memorable experience for performers and audiences alike.”

John Luther Adams is renowned for his large scale works inspired by the environment and written for outdoor performance, embracing  the calls and sounds of wildlife and nature. ‘One of the most original musical thinkers of the new century’ (Alex Ross/The New Yorker), he recently won the Pulitzer, William Schuman and Grammy Awards for his work, Beyond Ocean.  Adams lives in Alaska and New Mexico and strives in his work to create musical counterparts to the natural world around him: “If we’re listening deeply, if we’re listening carefully, if we’re listening with our broadest awareness,” he explains, “both noise and silence lead us to the same understanding, which is that
the whole world is music.”
http://www.johnlutheradams.com

DETAILS AND INFORMATION

EVENT  World premiere of Across The Distance for massed horns in F and in B-flat by John Luther Adams
QUALIFICATIONS  minimum Grade 5
AGE no limits either way
Participation is free.
AVAILABILITY
26 April 1100-1500hrs  Preliminary workshops/auditions, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
27 June 1100-1600hrs Rehearsal, Cambo Estate Fife
4 July 1600-1800hrs Dress Rehearsal, Cambo Estate Fife
5 July 1400-1800hrs Performance, Cambo Estate Fife
APPLICATION FORM: http://www.eastneukfestival.com/join-in/

Comments

  • Dave T says:

    Sounds like fun!
    I have a month to make my way to Glasgow. I have until June 27th to learn to play the horn. Better get busy.

  • Andy says:

    Not many grade 5 instrumentalists get paid, Norman. The piece is for 8 professional players (Alec Frank-Gemmill plus “seven other top professional horn players from around the UK”) and amateur players. As your extensive research will have told you, there is a very strong amateur horn community in St Andrew’s, and thanks to some very strong horn teachers in the area, a lot of young players.

    It’s a great project – very exciting that a major festival with such a stellar line up of artists has commissioned a serious piece that combines professionals (including one of the Radio 3 New Generation Artists – an up-and-coming internationally acclaimed soloist) with amateurs! Congratulations to Svend Brown for coming up with a good, original idea for a commission, and offering the chance-of-a-lifetime to a lot of amateur musicians.

  • Andy says:

    Oh – and don’t most concert performances involve wearing long trousers?!

  • tbp says:

    “Participation is free.”

    So nice of them not to charge the players to participate.

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