Christmas may come earlier every year, but new music seems to be developing a bit of resilience to the onslaught of carolling, Messiahs and candlelit choirboys. There’s plenty to enjoy well into December.
The Spitalfields Winter Festival runs from 4–15th December. As well as ‘dining experiences, film screenings, historic walks, singing workshops and family entertainment’ there are seven new music events. Two of these stand out. On 7th December The Riot Ensemble give the UK première of Djuro Zivkovic’s Night Music and the world première of Helga Arias Parra’s Incipit, who describes her music as ‘experimentation, risk and control in that exact order.’ Also intriguing is the performance of 10-year-old Marie-Louise Ptohos’s Moon Dance, part of the ensemble’s Young Composer of the Year project. You can see a copy of this and the other participants’ imaginative scores here. On 11th December The Choir of Royal Holloway perform music by Baltic and Scandinavian composers Arvo Pärt, Rihards Dubra, Vytautas Miškinis, Bo Hansson, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Ola Gjeilo, Einojuhani Rautavaara.
On 13th December the Casals Quartet and pianist Alexander Melnikov hold a Shostakovich Day at the Barbican’s Milton Concert Hall. The three concerts focus on his String Quartets and Preludes and Fugues for piano. There will also be readings from the composer’s letters.
A much less well-known, but also interesting, figure is Elisabeth Lutyens. Known for her wholehearted adoption of modernism, her music has not been widely performed since her death in 1983. She will be the topic of a Discovering Music day at City Halls, Glasgow on 14th December with presenter Stephen Johnson and BBCSSO conducted by Jac van Steen. Works played will include Music for Orchestra II, op.48; Rondel, op.108; and Music for Orchestra IV, op.152. The next Discovering Music day will feature the music of Anthony Payne on 21st Feb 2016.
Premières this month include Matthias Pintcher’s Idyll played by BBCSSO on 3rd. On the same day at The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh is Hirda, a new opera written in collaboration between Chris Stout and Gareth Williams. In Birmingham on 4th, BCMG present works by Dominic Muldowney and Howard Skempton including, respectively, world premières of Smooth between sea and land and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Back in London, meanwhile, there is the first chance in the UK to hear James MacMilan’s Women of the Apocalypse on 4th and Andrew Norman’s Switch on 11th; with the world première’s of James Moriarty’s Windows on 6th and Magnus Lindberg’s Violin Concerto No. 2 on 9th.
Full-circle, and proving that contemporary music does do Christmas, at BBC Maida Vale on 17th December is the chance to hear six world premières, all of them SATB carols selected as part of the BBC Radio 3 Carol Competition. If you can’t beat them, join them.