The London Sinfonietta, conducted by Geoffrey Paterson, brings together works by British and Polish composers, including Harrison Birtwistle's 'Silbury Air', to close its UK/Poland season.
London Sinfonietta are at Queen Elizabeth Hall on Friday 5 February 2027, with Geoffrey Paterson conducting and Tomoki Kitamura on piano. The programme brings together two generations of British and Polish composers reflecting on landscape and time, and it closes the Sinfonietta's UK/Poland season.
Birtwistle's Silbury Air takes its name from Silbury Hill, the ancient man-made mound on the edge of Salisbury Plain. It's a short chamber-ensemble piece of about seventeen minutes that builds an imaginary landscape out of familiar sounds like machine-like ticking or tolling bells, heard from ever-changing angles. Charlotte Bray's Reflections in Time, a Sinfonietta commission, was inspired by newborn twins — 'innocent, curious, and fragile' — and is sparsely written, colouristic and playful, with eight pairs of instruments passing shifting sounds to and fro.
The evening is framed by premieres from two Polish composers. Andrzej Ojczenasz's Primo: spatia continua turns a line from Virgil's Aeneid into sonic energy, and it gets its world premiere here. Zygmunt Krauze, one of Poland's most eminent living composers, is represented by Concertino for piano & orchestra, which makes its UK premiere. The whole run is about an hour and 40 minutes.
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Standard entry starts from £23, with concessions available. The concert starts at 7.30pm at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.
Date
Friday, 5 February 2027
19:30
Price
Paid
Recommended Age
+14 years
