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Music news including: Rambert selected for New Music 20x12
We are very excited to announce that we have been selected for New Music 20x12.
Even before December had brought this fantastic news we were celebrating 2010 as a great year for music at Rambert: Rambert had won the Olivier Award after many more performances of Julian Anderson's The Comedy of Change; solo harpsichordist Carole Cerasi had given the first live performances of Scarlatti Sonatas in Siobhan Davies' The Art of Touch; we had recreated a classic 60's New York electronic sound installation for RainForest; and we launched two very contrasting commissioned scores in the autumn in Awakenings and Cardoon Club. We have also already started work with Stephen McNeff on his piece for September 2011, and put on a feast of new pieces at The Linbury as part of our choreographic development programme. Furthermore, 2010 will always be the year in which we began the Rambert Music Fellowship.
Young composer Gavin Higgins joined Rambert in January 2010 after a selection process with 115 applicants. During 2010 he toured with the Company, watched the dancers at work, and wrote music for them in collaboration with the Rambert Orchestra. He also had premières given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata, and his work is now attracting serious national interest.
‘This evening included a preview of Atomic Café, written by Rambert's music fellow Gavin Higgins. To be choreographed later, the work sets strings against urgent woodwind, pushing insistently forward. It's a reminder of the ambition of Rambert's plans for new work.' The Independent, December 2010
New Music 20x12 newmusic20x12.org
We are very proud to have been chosen by PRS for Music Foundation to be part of this exciting and imaginative project, in which Gavin Higgins will score a new ballet for Rambert as part of the Cultural Olympiad.
It was announced on 10 December 2010 that 20 outstanding pieces of new music will feature centre stage at the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, as London hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The 20 works commissioned for New Music 20x12 will each last 12 minutes and will provide a snapshot of the quality and diversity of new music in the UK. Each piece will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 - ensuring as many people as possible have the opportunity to enjoy excellent new music as part of the 2012 celebrations.
What Wild Ecstasy, Rambert Dance Company and Gavin Higgins
In 2012, Rambert Dance Company will stage a new ballet to mark the centenary of the iconic L'après-midi d'un faune by Nijinsky, originally set to the seminal score of the same name by Debussy. Rambert has a long history of performance of the original ballet, and possesses many evocative photographs in the archive. What Wild Ecstasy will feature a re-scored version of Debussy's music and, in response, Gavin Higgins will take Debussy's harmonic palette as a starting point to create a partner to the original piece. Both pieces will be set to new choreography for Rambert and together will form What Wild Ecstasy.