fri 29/11/2024

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, CBSO Centre, Birmingham | reviews, news & interviews

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, CBSO Centre, Birmingham

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, CBSO Centre, Birmingham

Tokyo composer turned American has style that looks medieval but sounds modern

Oliver Knussen: A career devoted too selflessly to other people’s music
This latest BCMG concert had its pleasures; and it had its irritations. Among the pleasures was a pair of works, one of them newly commissioned, by the under-performed Japanese composer Jo Kondo. The irritations were of the BBC variety: long pauses between short works while technicians in headphones faffed around with microphones and music stands, in sovereign disregard for the convenience of a large paying audience.
This latest BCMG concert had its pleasures; and it had its irritations. Among the pleasures was a pair of works, one of them newly commissioned, by the under-performed Japanese composer Jo Kondo. The irritations were of the BBC variety: long pauses between short works while technicians in headphones faffed around with microphones and music stands, in sovereign disregard for the convenience of a large paying audience.
Kondo is the inventor of a method as individual in its way as Reich’s process music or Ligeti’s micro-polyphony

Share this article

Comments

Dear Stephen, I thought last night's BCMG concert was amazing (though I thought the Feldman dreary and gutless), and couldn't agree with you more about the self-inportant faffing of the BBC engineers. I'm sure they shifted the same microphone at least seven times, a maximum of about two inches. Unfortunately I won't have enough space to gripe about it in my Birmingham Post review. And you and I both thought of the word "hocketing" in the early Kondo piece. Best wishes, Chris Christopher Morley

Dear Stephen, It wasn't announced during the concert but the title of John Woolrich's piece is 'A little song for Jackie and Stephen'. All the best, Tim

Tim and Chris, Thanks for those helpful comments. It's nice to be agreed with (for once) and good to get extra info. Stephen

Add comment

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters