Philip Venables

Tag: Klaviertrio im Geiste

  • Below the Belt one of BBC Music Magazine’s ’30 must-have albums’

    Below the Belt one of BBC Music Magazine’s ’30 must-have albums’

    BBC Music Magazine is celebrating its 30th Birthday this year, and as part of the celebrations they have chosen Below The Belt as one of their 30 “Must-Have Albums of our Lifetime”.

    In the week when the UK’s financial and political stability is balancing on a knife-edge, Steph Power’s writing is incredibly prescient:

    Over the past 30 years, the UK has experienced seismic cultural and socio-political shifts. In his superb 2018 debut recording Below the Belt, composer Phillip Venables speaks to the resulting – and ongoing — turmoil with a lacerating eloquence that addresses social fallout and the awakening of new generations to matters of individual freedom and identity. Visceral yet tender and forensically clear, the six vocal and instrumental works encompass fractured states, super-real abstraction and graphic, ferociously satirical directness, brilliantly performed by an array of soloists and ensembles including performance artist David Hoyle and the London Sinfonietta under conductor Richard Baker.

  • Portrait concerts at Musica Festival and Festival d’Automne announced

    Portrait concerts at Musica Festival and Festival d’Automne announced

    Musica Festival in Strasbourg has just announced its 2021 programme, and I’m delighted to say there will be a portrait concert of my work in the festival on 1st October. The concert will be performed by Lovemusic, with guest artists Grace Durham (mezzo-soprano), Andreas Borregaard (accordion) and Romain Pageard as the host of the evening. The show is called Talking Music, and will feature Klaviertrio im Geiste, Illusions, My Favourite Piece is the Goldberg Variations and Numbers 91—95 alongside the world premiere of two new settings of Simon Howard’s Numbers: Numbers 81—85 and Numbers 96—100. These new pieces have been commissioned by Musica Festival, Festival d’Automne in Paris, and Lovemusic. Oscar Lozano Pérez will be making video projections and mise-en-espace for the show. Talking Music will be repeated in Paris on 26th October in Theatre de la Ville / Espace Cardin, as part of a larger feature on my work in the Festival d’Automne.

    More information about the concert in Strasbourg is here.

    More information about the concert in Paris is here.

  • Below The Belt

    Below The Belt

    My debut album, Below the Belt, is now available for pre-ordering via NMC here. The disc will be launched on 16th March 2018.  The works on the disc are:

    The Revenge of Miguel Cotto,
    Klaviertrio im Geiste,
    Numbers 76–80,
    Numbers 91-95,
    Metamorphoses after Britten,
    Illusions.

    The disc features David Hoyle, the London Sinfonietta, Phoenix Piano Trio, Ligeti Quartet, Leigh Melrose, Dario Dugandzic, Nick Blackburn, Melinda Maxwell, Natalie Raybould, Lewis Bretherton, George Chambers and Ashley Mercer, conducted by Richard Baker.

  • Video of Klaviertrio im Geiste, Oxford

    Video of Klaviertrio im Geiste, Oxford

    Score and more info here

    performed by the Phoenix Piano Trio
    at Oxford Lieder Festival, Holywell Music Room, Oxford, UK.
    on 20th October 2012.

    Klaviertrio im Geiste is based on the second movement of Beethoven’s Ghost Trio (Piano Trio No. 5, Op.70/1). If you listen to both pieces side by side you can hear the connections between the second movement and my piece!

  • Klaviertrio im Geiste (middle bit)

    Klaviertrio im Geiste (middle bit)

     

    performed by the Phoenix Piano Trio
    at Oxford Lieder Festival, Holywell Music Room, Oxford, UK.
    on 20th October 2012.

    Klaviertrio im Geiste is based on the second movement of Beethoven’s Ghost Trio (Piano Trio No. 5, Op.70/1). This is the third movement (Scherzo).

  • BBC Radio 3, In Tune, with Phoenix Piano Trio

    BBC Radio 3, In Tune, with Phoenix Piano Trio

    Wonderful news: one of the movements (the Scherzo) from my new piano trio, Klaviertrio im Geiste, will be performed live on BBC Radio 3 on Friday afternoon, 10th June, from about 4.45pm.  It’ll be performed by the Phoenix Piano Trio as part of a performance and interview about their Beyond Beethoven series.

    They very nicely commissioned me last year to write this new trio, as a companion to Beethoven’s Ghost trio, which they’ll perform together with my piece at The Forge in Camden, London, on Wednesday evening, 8th June, and in Oxford at theHolywell Music Room on Saturday 11th June.

    It feels like this piece is a big compositional step forwards for me: lots more process-based musical structure and much more clarity and simplicity than earlier pieces.  It feels like a very positive change. So I’m particularly excited to hear it realised.

    UPDATE:

    You can listen again on iPlayer for the next 5 days – click here.

    The Phoenix are on from the beginning, and the bit with me in starts from about 12:45 minutes in.