Awards for Composers recipients feature in weekend of Cultural Olympiad commissions
Four Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Composers recipients featured in a weekend of performances, celebrating new music in the UK, at London’s Southbank Centre.
The event was the culmination of the New Music 20×12 commissioning programme, delivered by PRS for Music Foundation in partnership with BBC Radio 3, London 2012 and NMC Recordings. The programme selected 20 composers from over 200 applicants to create 12-minute musical works, inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic Games, as part of the Cultural Olympiad.
Following separate premieres across the UK, the weekend brought together compositions by PHF Awards for Composers recipients Sally Beamish (awarded 1996), Emily Howard (awarded 2008), Anna Meredith and Jason Yarde (both awarded 2010). The event saw all 20 of the Cultural Olympiad commissions presented at venues across the Southbank Centre site, from 13 to 15 July, with many performances free to attend. The weekend celebrated new music from a diverse range of genres and also included workshops for aspiring musicians.
Sally Beamish’s composition ‘Spinal Chords’ was presented as a recorded performance with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Set to text by Melanie Reid, who was paralysed in a horse-riding accident, Sally’s work captures the inspirational spirit shown by Melanie and others facing adversity.
Jason Yarde performed ‘Skip, Dash, Flow’ with Cardiff’s community jazz big band, Wonderbrass – a piece blending the world rhythms of Olympic hosts Beijing, London and 2016 host Rio de Janeiro.
Emily Howard participated in a workshop on composing and text, curated by Brunel University’s Institute of Composing, and presented the 12-minute opera ‘Zátopek!’ with Second Movement. The work is a near real-time recreation of Czech athlete, Emil Zátopek, winning the 5000 metre race at the 1952 Olympic Games, with music by Emily and libretto by Selma Dimitrijevic.
Anna Meredith presented ‘HandsFree’ with the National Youth Orchestra (NYO), in a creative performance of clapping and beat boxing. Anna developed the piece through workshops with members of the NYO, she says, “building a piece they’re excited to perform and want to own, that showcases their virtuosity to audiences old and new”.
The Awards for Composers are part of the Awards for Artists scheme from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Arts programme. The Awards aim to support promising artists at critical points in their careers, to enable them to pursue their creative ideas.