Walton Belshazzar's Feast; Stockhausen Trans |
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This season Graham is involved as an assistant conductor in two very different projects. He is currently assisting Sir Colin Davis in Walton's Belshazzar's Feast with the the LSO and the London Symphony Chorus, and later this season will to prepare the RCM Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Stockhausen's Trans with Diego Masson in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 1 November 2008. See calendar for full concert details. |
American opera triple bill with Second Movement |
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Graham is to conduct four performances of an American opera triple bill with new highly acclaimed opera company Second Movement. The show will feature Barber's ten-minute opera, A Hand of Bridge, and Bernstein's ever popular Trouble in Tahiti, alongside a new commission and the world première of Fade written by young American composer Stefan Weisman. Performances take place on 22/23/24/25 October in Shoreditch's unique Hoxton Hall. For full details visit the Second Movement website. |
Song cycle The Dalliance of the Eagles to receive première in October 2008 |
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Graham's collaboration with The Knack Singers will fully come to fruition in October with the première of his song cycle, The Dalliance of the Eagles, completed today. All ten movements of the work have been premièred individually across the first nine months of 2008, but on 30 October the first performance of the full work, which lasts just over half an hour, will take place at St John's Wood Church, London at 7.30pm. Further details and ticket bookings available from knacksingers@googlemail.com. |
Major new work for BBC Concert Orchestra and Indian instrumentalists, May 2009 |
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Graham has been selected to write a major new work as part of one of spnm's largest projects to date: a collaboration between traditional Indian instrumentalists and the BBC Concert Orchestra to produce a 20-minute work for a Western orchestra based on the composition of Indian ragas. The work will be composed over a nine-month process in close collaboration with all musicians involved in the première, which will take place in the Royal Festival Hall on 6 May 2009, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. More details on this exciting project to follow! |
Times Podcast released |
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The Times today released this week's podcast related to this summer's BBC Proms season, featuring Graham's piano duet Pavane pour un Boléro défunt. The podcast, which includes an interview with Graham, is available here from the Times online website. |
The Times Proms Podcast |
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Graham's piano duet Pavane pour un Boléro défunt will feature as one of eight new compositions specially composed for The Times Proms Podcast, presented by Nicola Christie. A 'rewriting' of Ravel's Boléro, which will be performed in this year's Proms season, the Pavane will be performed on the Times website within the Times Proms podcasts, and will to be broadcast and hosted on the Promcast website - www.promcast.co.uk. |
Appointment as Musical Director of Kingston Choral Society |
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Graham has been appointed as Musical Director of Kingston Choral Society from November 2008 onwards. He will begin his tenureship in the Society's 60th anniversary year, during which concert performances will include such works as Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, Fauré's Requiem, Britten's St. Nicholas and Haydn's Nelson Mass. See calendar for full concert details. |
Oxford University Press to publish carol |
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Oxford University Press are to publish Graham's setting of Adam lay ybounden for accompanied two-part choir in their forthcoming publication The Oxford Book of Flexible Carols, building on the success of their Flexible Anthems book last year. Details will be announced here when the book is in circulation later this year. |
Westminster Abbey commission and performance |
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James McVinnie, Assistant Organist at Westminster Abbey will give the first performance of Graham's Toccatina for solo organ on 22 June 2008 at 5.45pm. It will be heard alongside a performance of Giles Swayne's iconic Riff-Raff. Free admission! |
Commission for clarinet concerto, January 2009 |
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Graham has won the Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra's 2008/09 Young Composer Award and has subsequently been commissioned to write a concerto for clarinet and orchestra. The work will be based on the mythological tale of Echo, the mountain nymph. The Orchestra will give the first performance of the work on 17 January 2009 at Reading Town Hall. See calendar for full concert details and watch this space for updates! |
Concert with BBC Young Musician of the Year finalist, October 2008 |
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Graham will return once again to the Sinfonia of Cambridge on 4 October for a concert for chorus and orchestra featuring Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with pianist Cordelia Williams, a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2006 competition. The programme will also feature Brahms' Alto Rhapsody with mezzo-soprano Kate Symonds-Joy, alongside Brahms' rarely-performed op. 17 Gesänge for female choir, harp and two horns, and Sibelius' Rakastava for strings and percussion. See calendar for full concert details. |
Appointment as director of Concordia Chamber Choir, London |
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Graham has been appointed as director of Concordia Chamber Choir, a 30-strong adult chamber choir based in Dulwich, London. Only the second person to hold this post, he will begin working with the Choir this month, with forthcoming planned performances in 2008/09 of works such as Parry's Songs of Farewell, Rachmaninov's Vespers, and a special ten-year anniversary performance of Tallis's Spem in alium. See calendar for full concert details. |
composition:today interview |
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An interview with new music website composition:today has been published, detailing information about Graham's work as a composer and as co-founder and Principal conductor of The Dmitri Ensemble. You can read the article here. |
Concert with Tallis Chamber Orchestra, October 2008 |
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Graham has been invited to work with the Tallis Chamber Orchestra in October 2008 culminating in a concert in Westleton, Suffolk on Sunday 19 October at 3pm. Programme tbc. More details available soon. |
UK Festival performance announced |
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The gentlemen of the choir of St Pancras Parish Church will give the London première of O Sacrum Convivium at this year's London Festival of Contemporary Church Music on 18 May 2008. See Calendar for more details. |
The Dmitri Ensemble PASSIONTIDE TOUR review |
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"The star of the evening was the Dmitri Ensemble" (Classical Source, March 2008). The Dmitri Ensemble's debut concert in St. John's, Smith Square as part of their PASSIONTIDE Tour 2008 has today been favourably reviewed in Classical Source. See Reviews for full datails. |
Aurora Orchestra: Lebanon, February 2008 |
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The Aurora Orchestra will give the première of Graham’s new arrangement of Delius’s The Walk to the Paradise Garden for their chamber-sized forces as part of The Al Bustan International Festival of Music and the Arts in Beirut, Lebanon on 20 Feburary 2008. Commissioned by the Aurora Orchestra, the arrangement is scored for thirteen players, and will performed alongside Brahms’ Serenade No. 1 and Wagner’s Siegfried-Idyll. |
| 12.10.07 | The Dmitri Ensemble PASSIONTIDE tour and recording |
The Dmitri Ensemble has today announced a major new project to take place at Easter 2008. The group, of which Graham is co-founder/director, will present a Passiontide tour of Giles Swayne's Stabat Mater and James MacMillan's Seven Last Words from the Cross in four major UK venues, including Norwich Cathedral, St John's, Smith Square and St Paul's Cathedral. The tour, generously supported by BBC New Talent, will culminate in the Ensemble's first commercial audio release: a disc of works by James MacMillan, to include two première recordings, to be released on the NAXOS label in 2009. See The Dmitri Ensemble for more details. PASSIONTIDE 2008 TOUR poster (PDF file): The Dmitri Ensemble PASSIONTIDE 2008 tour poster PASSIONTIDE 2008 TOUR flyer (PDF file): |
| 05.10.07 | Re-engagement with Sinfonia of Cambridge |
| The Sinfonia of Cambridge have once again invited Graham to conduct them in concert in January 2008. The programme will feature Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été with mezzo-soprano Olivia Ray, and culminates in one of the most celebrated and controversial symphonic works of the twentieth century, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. The concert will take place on Saturday 19 January 2008 in West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge. See Calendar for more details. |
| 28.09.07 | Concert with Aalborg Symfoniorkester, November 2008 |
| Graham has just been invited to conduct the Aalborg Symfoniorkester in Denmark on 13 November 2008. More details on this exciting engagement to follow soon. |
| 22.09.07 | spnm's Adopt-a-Composer scheme collaboration |
| The Society for Promotion of New Music (spnm) and Making Music has today announced its 2008 Adopt-a-Composer pairings, and have selected Graham as one of six composers to take part in the sceheme. Over the next twelve months, he will work with The Knack Singers to produce a substantial work for the group, to receive its first performance in September 2008. The scheme, now in its eighth year, is run by Making Music in partnership with spnm and the Performing Rights Society Foundation for New Music. |
| 15.09.07 | BBC Radio 3 Remembrance Day broadcast |
| The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge has commissioned Graham to write an anthem for their Remembrance Day service, to be given its first performance during a live broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Choral Evensong programme on Sunday 11 November 2007, at 4pm . The work will be a setting of Secret Music by Siegfried Sassoon, once also a student at Clare College, and features in a service with music and texts by other Clare alumni. |
