Saturday 18 May 20137.30pmbcmg.org.uk

25 YEARS

Since 1992, BCMG has premiered more than 65 new works with the help of a wide range of individuals through Sound Investment.

Sound Unit shares in each commission are priced at £150 and your donation can start from £15 per month. However, thanks to match funding from Arts Council England through our Catalyst award, we currently have three Special Offers available, including the chance to get your very first Sound Unit half price, for £75.

Join Sound Investment now and share the excitement of bringing alive new pieces of music from the leading composers of our time.

By becoming a Sound Investor you can:• attend rehearsals and premieres• meet composers and performers• have your name listed in a new work’s

score

Invest now in Crowd Out by David Lang, to be premiered in 2014. Other composers currently being commissioned include Param Vir, Gerald Barry, Benedict Mason and many more.

Thank you to those Sound Investors who have taken advantage of our Catalyst special offers so far!

Sound Investment

Share in music’s futureGo to: bcmg.org.uk/ soundinvestment call: 0121 616 6523 or email: alex@bcmg.org.uk

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Introduced by BCMG Artist-in-Association John Woolrich

Tonight’s programmeSaturday 18 May 2013, 7.30pmCBSO Centre, Birmingham

Oboe: Melinda MaxwellClarinet: Joanna PattonPiano: Malcolm WilsonViolin: Alexandra WoodViola: Christopher Yates Cello: Ulrich Heinen

Alban Berg Four Pieces Op. 5, for Clarinet and Piano (1913)

Aaron Copland Nocturne Ukelele Serenade Two pieces for violin and piano (1928)

Benjamin Britten Elegy for solo viola (1930)

Benjamin Britten Going down Hill on a Bicycle (A Boy’s Song), for violin and piano (1931)

Oliver Knussen Cantata Op. 15, for oboe and string trio (1977)

Interval

Hans Werner Henze Olly on the Shore, for piano (2001)

Alban Berg Adagio, for violin, clarinet and piano (1924-25)

Benjamin Britten March Lullaby Waltz Three pieces for violin and piano from, ‘Suite Op. 6’, for violin and piano (1934-35)

Benjamin Britten Phantasy Quartet, for oboe and string trio (1932) Andante alla marcia – allegro giusto – andante – tempo primo

This evening’s concert will be followed by the first public screening of The Ensemble of Possibilities: 25 Years of BCMG, a 40-minute film directed and narrated by filmmaker Barrie Gavin celebrating BCMG’s 25th anniversary.

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Illuminating BrittenThreaded through this programme is a retrospective of music written by the young Benjamin Britten between 1930 and 1935. Britten wrote his Elegy for viola when he was just sixteen, on the 1st August 1930, his very last day at school. (In Britten’s end-of-year report the headmaster wrote that his music had been ‘a joy to us all’). The Elegy is one of the many early works discovered, performed and published after Britten’s death. It was first heard fifty four years after it was written.

On leaving school, Britten moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music, where, at the end of his first year, he wrote a couple of pieces for a fellow student, the Italian violinist Remo Lauricella: By the Moon we sport and play (after Shelley) and Going down Hill on a Bicycle (after H.C.Beeching).

A year later, in 1932, Britten wrote the Phantasy Quartet as his entry for the Cobbett Prize, a competition designed to encourage the composition of single-movement chamber works, modelled on 17th century English viol fantasies. Britten didn’t win, but his quartet was performed by Leon Goossens on the BBC in August 1933. Another year later Britten composed his violin Suite. It was first heard complete in a performance given by Antonio Brosa and Britten in March 1936, again as part of a BBC broadcast. Towards the end of his life, in April 1976, Britten suggested extracting the March, Lullaby and Waltz.

There are in these early instrumental works, in Michael Kennedy’s words, ‘few glimpses of the mature artist: not many heavens are seen in these grains of sand. They are the products of an extremely talented young composer, not so much ‘facile’, the pejorative term favoured in first reviews, as fluent and intelligent…’

Britten heard Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck in London in 1934 and was, he said in a letter, ‘moved to tears by the incredible beauty of lots of bits of it’. ‘The music… is extraordinarily striking…’

‘I feel he is one of the most important men writing today…’ Britten wrote, ‘A very great man.’

When he won a small travelling scholarship in his last year at the Royal College Britten hoped to use it to study with Berg in Vienna, but was dissuaded by his parents (on the advice of the college).

Berg’s Four Pieces for clarinet and piano, are his only true miniatures. They were written in 1913, just before Berg met Arnold Schoenberg in Berlin. It seems that Schoenberg criticized Berg, attempting to discourage him from composing songs and small-scale works, and encouraging him towards extended instrumental composition. The irony, of course, is that Berg’s Four Pieces were strongly influenced by Schoenberg’s own set of miniatures, the Six Little Piano Pieces of 1911. The first and last pieces are the longest and enclose a slow movement and a scherzo.

In 1924 Schoenberg turned 50, and Berg decided to honour the event with a musical work. Berg told Schoenberg in a letter: ‘I am at long last at work again, which, however, does not flow easily. After all, I’ve composed almost nothing in the past twenty months (since the completion of Wozzeck). Out of many plans the following has crystallized: a Concerto for Piano and Violin, with accompaniment of wind instruments…’ Berg sketched the first movement of the Kammerkonzert by September, but then the plans for producing Wozzeck and problems with asthma and digestive ailments intervened, and the score was put aside until August 1924, just a month before Schoenberg’s birthday. Schoenberg made some caustic remarks about the lack of progress on the piece and offered some suggestions for the music he had seen, which seems to have had some effect on the slow-working Berg, since the Concerto was finished in short score by February 1925, and the orchestration completed in July. Berg later transcribed the slow movement, Adagio, which he described as a ‘ternary song form’, for violin, clarinet and piano.

In 1963 Britten listed Aaron Copland (along with Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Tippett) as one of the living composers he most admired. He had first heard Copland’s music in 1935 when he judged it to be ‘really beautiful and exhilarating’. They finally met in 1938 at the ISCM Festival in London and an invitation to stay at Britten’s home, the Old Mill

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in Snape, quickly followed. Britten recommended Copland to his publisher, Boosey & Hawkes. In later years Copland conducted at the Aldeburgh Festival where Britten and Pears also premiered Copland’s Old American Songs. Copland’s two violin pieces date from 1928, when he was studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Like Britten’s suite they show their composer in an experimental mood. They comprise a bluesy, smoky Nocturne and Ukelele Serenade, complete with quarter-tones, bar lines that don’t always coincide, and ukulele impressions from pizzicato violin.

Oliver Knussen lives in Snape, just up the road from where Benjamin Britten lived in Aldeburgh, home of the annual festival, where Knussen was artistic director for 15 years. He met and was encouraged by Britten when he was young. Knussen’s Cantata is for the same forces as Britten’s Phantasy Quartet. It’s one of a triptych of chamber works: Autumnal for violin and piano (which is dedicated to the memory of Britten), Sonya’s Lullaby for piano and Cantata, ‘a sort of mini-trilogy, all being on one level abstract pieces concerned with harmonic coherence, and on another level intimate, diary-like expressions’. Knussen says that the title ‘was arrived at after noticing that the relationships between the various episodes reminded me of the interdependence of recitatives and more-or-less self-contained numbers in some 18th-century solo cantatas, an impression reinforced by the predominance of the oboe.’

Like Knussen, Hans Werner Henze was a great admirer of Benjamin Britten, a ‘remarkable man’, he called him. He dedicated his Kammermusik 1958 to Britten. (Britten’s Children’s Crusade is dedicated to Henze). In the late sixties, when Henze was under political attack in Germany, Britten told Henze that ‘he and his festival would welcome me with open arms at any time, if ever I had problems launching a new piece’. But although his piano piece, Olly on the Shore, is a homage to a fellow composer and evokes the sea at Aldeburgh, it was written for another Suffolk-based composer. When Henze was a boy he came across the title (not the music, and not any lyrics) of “Molly on the Shore”. Who was this Molly?’ Henze wrote, ‘…and

who was Mr Grainger, the composer? I eventually found out, ages later, and… as my friend Olly’s (Oliver Knussen’s) 50th birthday came nearer and nearer I thought I’d write him a piano piece with the same title (except for the initial M) and think of him most affectionately while he, our Olly, is standing on the Suffolk shore, near his lovely house, looking out across the ocean, looking and calling out for a world of wonderful images made of sounds and rhymes and tunes still to come…’John Woolrich, BCMG Artist-in-Association

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Alban Berg (1885 – 1935) was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique.

As a child he was more interested in literature than music and did not begin to compose until he was fifteen. Berg had little formal music education before he became a student of Arnold Schoenberg in October 1904.

His student compositions included five drafts for piano sonatas. These early sonata sketches eventually culminated in Berg’s Piano Sonata, Op. 1 (1907–1908); it is one of the most formidable “first” works ever written. Berg studied with Schoenberg for six years until 1911. Berg admired him as a composer and mentor, and they remained close lifelong friends.

From 1915 to 1918, Berg served in the Austro-Hungarian Army and during a period of leave in 1917 he accelerated work on his first opera, Wozzeck. After the end of World War I, he settled again in Vienna where he taught private pupils. He also helped Schoenberg run his Society for Private Musical Performances.

Three excerpts from Wozzeck were performed in 1924, and this brought Berg his first public success. The opera, which Berg completed in 1922, was first performed on 14 December 1925, when Erich Kleiber directed the first performance in Berlin. Today Wozzeck is seen as one of the century’s most important works. Berg died from blood poisoning on Christmas Eve 1935.

Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976) was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, on the east coast of England. Although he was already composing vigorously as a child, he nonetheless felt the importance of some solid guidance and in 1928 turned to the composer Frank Bridge; two years later he went to the Royal College of Music in London, studying with Arthur Benjamin, Harold Samuel and John Ireland. While still a student, he wrote his ‘official’ Op. 1, the Sinfonietta for chamber ensemble, and the Phantasy Quartet for oboe and string trio, and in 1936 he composed Our Hunting Fathers, an ambitious song-cycle for soprano and orchestra, which confirmed Britten’s virtuosic vocal and instrumental technique. He was already earning his living as a composer, having joined the GPO (Post Office) Film Unit the previous year; the collaboration he began there with the poet W. H. Auden was to prove an important one throughout his career.

Britten found himself in the United States at the outset of World War II and stayed there for three more years, returning to Britain in 1942. In America he produced a number of important works, among them the orchestral Sinfonia da Requiem, the song-cycle Les Illuminations for high voice and strings, and his Violin Concerto.

Back in Britain, where as a conscientious objector he was excused military service, he began work on the piece that would establish him beyond question as the pre-eminent British composer of his generation – the opera Peter Grimes, premiered to an ecstatic reaction on 7 June 1945. The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra: Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell – a cornerstone of the orchestral repertoire – was first performed in the

Alban Berg

Benjamin Britten

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following year. Indeed, Britten now composed one major work after another.

Britten’s importance in post-War British cultural life was enhanced by his founding of the English Opera Group in 1946 and the Aldeburgh Festival two years later. His career as a composer was matched by his outstanding ability as a performer: he was both a refined pianist and a spontaneous and fluent conductor – his Mozart was particularly highly esteemed. Britten’s later career was clouded by bouts of ill-health, culminating in heart disease. He never fully recovered from open-heart surgery in 1973, and died on 4 December 1976, at the age of 63, a few months after being appointed a life peer – the first composer ever to know that honour.Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes

Aaron Copland’s (1900 – 1990) name is synonymous with American music. It was his pioneering achievement to break free from Europe and create concert music that is characteristically American. In addition to writing such well-loved works as Fanfare for the Common Man, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring, Copland conducted, organized concerts, wrote books on music, and served as an American cultural ambassador to the world.

While studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Copland became interested in incorporating popular styles into his music. Upon his return to the U.S. he advanced the cause of new music through lectures and writings, and organized the famed Copland-Sessions concerts.

As America entered first Depression then war, Copland began to speak to the concerns of

the average citizen in those times of trouble. His intentions were fulfilled as works from Billy the Kid to Lincoln Portrait to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Appalachian Spring found both popular success and critical acclaim.

Aaron Copland was one of the most honoured cultural figures in the history of the United States. In 1982, The Aaron Copland School of Music was established in his honour at Queens College of the City University of New York.Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes

Hans Werner Henze (1926 – 2012), born in Gütersloh, Germany, received his earliest musical training at the Braunschweig Staatsmusikschule. He began to study with Wolfgang Fortner at the Heidelberg Institute for Church Music in 1946. In the late 1940s he came across serialism and began to attend the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. Henze left Germany in 1953 and settled in Italy – a geographical distance from German contemporary music theory that helped him to achieve new varied forms of expression in his own music. (In the late 1970s and early 1980s Henze turned to more traditional forms). From 1962 to 1967 Henze taught a masterclass of composition at the Salzburg Mozarteum. In Cologne Henze held a chair at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik from 1980 to 1991. In addition, he was appointed composer-in-residence at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood/USA in 1983 and 1988-1996 as well as of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1991.

Henze wrote solo concertos, symphonies, oratorios, song cycles and chamber music, however it is his

Aaron Copland

Hans Werner Henze

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works for music theatre that made Henze one of the most frequently performed contemporary composers of our time. The radio opera version of his early opera Ein Landarzt based on Franz Kafka’s story of the same name was awarded the ‘Prix Italia’ as early as 1953.

In the centre of Henze’s orchestral compositions are his ten symphonies, including Sinfonia N.9 for mixed choir and orchestra (1995-97) – an impressive example of Henze’s examination of Germany’s National Socialist past. Sinfonia N.10, commissioned by Paul Sacher, was premiered at a widely acclaimed performance in Lucerne in 2002 by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle.

Oliver Knussen (born in Glasgow in 1952) is one of the pre-eminent composer-conductors in the world today and is presently Artist-in-Association with both the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. The recipient of many awards, including the Nemmers Prize in 2006, he has been Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival (1983-98), Head of Contemporary Music at the Tanglewood Music Center (1986-93) and Music Director of the London Sinfonietta (1998-2002). Together with Colin Matthews he founded the Composition and Performance Courses at the Britten-Pears School in 1992.

Among his best-known compositions are three symphonies, concertos for horn and violin, several song cycles, works for ensembles and for solo piano, and the operas Where the Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop! written in collaboration with the late Maurice Sendak.

His recent 60th birthday was celebrated with special events in Aldeburgh, Amsterdam, Birmingham, London and Tanglewood.

About tonight’s performers

Ulrich Heinen was born in Ittenbach near Bonn in Germany. He studied at the Cologne Conservatoire under Siegfried Palm and at the Juilliard School of Music in New York with Leonard Rose. He won several national and international competitions: 1st prize of the Cello Competition of all German Music Colleges in Frankfurt; Rostropovich Competition in La Rochelle (France); and Vittorio Gui Competition in Florence (Italy).

After graduating from Juilliard he took up the position of principal cello with the Radio Orchestra Saarbrücken, Germany and in the same year became member of the Czapary String Trio, earning an outstanding reputation for the interpretation of Mozart and Schubert.

In 1984 Ulrich Heinen settled in England, at Sir Simon Rattle’s invitation to become principal cellist and section leader of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

In 1987 he co-founded Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG), which subsequently became one of Britain’s most important ensembles for contemporary music. He has appeared with BCMG in many festivals in Britain and abroad, both as member of the ensemble and as soloist.

He has recorded Mark Anthony Turnage’s Kai, which was written for him, for EMI and Bach’s Cello Suites together with cello solo pieces by Howard Skempton, Gerald Barry, Simon Holt, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Hans Werner Henze for METIER (Divine-Arts).

Oliver Knussen

Ulrich Heinen

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Melinda Maxwell has performed worldwide as soloist and chamber musician in Europe, Japan, Africa and the USA and at all the major UK Festivals. Many composers have written pieces for her: Simon Bainbridge, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Simon Holt, Howard Skempton and Nicholas Maw to name a few. As a composer her pieces include Pibroch for solo oboe, Elegy for oboe and piano and Song for Sidney for solo oboe and three drone oboes. There are also various other works and ensemble pieces with strings. Her many recordings have been critically acclaimed. In 2007 and 2009 two solo CDs were voted CD of the month for BBC Music Magazine and the Guardian.

She is principal oboe of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and the Endymion Ensemble and performs regularly as principal with the London Sinfonietta, the Hilliard Ensemble and for film sessions with the London Metropolitan Orchestra. She has taught at the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College London, and is a tutor at various Britten-Pears courses and the National Youth Orchestra. She is Consultant in Woodwind Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music and is currently taking a Masters degree in Jazz studies at Birmingham Conservatoire.

Joanna Patton comes from the Wirral. She studied at Chetham’s School of Music before gaining her honours degree and performance diploma at the Royal Northern College of Music.

She has performed numerous concertos with various orchestras including the Tomasi concerto as part of the Aix-en-Provence festival, the Mozart concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Strauss duet concertino with the Southern Sinfonia and the Finzi concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the Shell/LSO scholarship final. She has given numerous recitals at lots of the UK’s music festivals and on leaving the RNCM, she was invited to contribute to a CD of David Ellis’ music. At this time she was also invited to join the staff of Chetham’s School of music, a post she held for thirteen years.

Jo enjoyed a busy freelance career working with most of our major orchestras such as the Hallé, Northern Sinfonia, BBC Philharmonic, RLPO, BBCSSO and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra until in 2006 she was appointed by Sakari Oramo as Principal 2nd and Eb clarinet with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Melinda Maxwell Joanna Patton

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Malcolm Wilson’s early studies in Birmingham with Constance Warren led to him winning a Foundation Scholarship to the Royal College of Music, studying with Kendal Taylor and Maurice Cole, making his solo debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1977.

Malcolm has been a principal pianist with BCMG virtually since its inception, playing both as ensemble member and soloist.

His performing career embraces chamber music, accompaniment, improvisation and two piano repertoire. From 1982 to 2005 he was a principal pianist with the CBSO as well as making a big contribution to music education - he was for more than twenty-five years Head of the Piano Department of Birmingham Conservatoire, and in 2011 was made Emeritus Professor.

Recent recordings have included two piano versions (together with Philip Martin) of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Rachmaninov`s Symphonic Dances.

Alexandra Wood, “highly charged yet imaginatively refined” (The Times), has won major prizes at international violin competitions including Wieniawski, Tibor Varga, Lipizer and Yampolsky. Alexandra graduated with a starred double first from Selwyn College, Cambridge before going on to the Royal College of Music in London, where she was President Emerita Scholar and studied with Itzhak Rashkovsky.

She has given performances for numerous International Festivals and also in London at the Wigmore Hall, South Bank, Kings Place and live on BBC Radio 3.

As a concerto artist she has performed with orchestras such as the Philharmonia, City of London Sinfonia, and the OSJ. She has given the premiere of violin concertos specially written for her by Hugh Wood (2009) and Charlotte Bray (2010). Leader of City of London Sinfonia, and regular leader of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group she also frequently guest-leads other ensembles, and has collaborated with chamber groups such as The Schubert Ensemble and Endymion.

Alexandra has won many prestigious awards, and was selected for the Tillett Trust Young Artists Platform, and won a “Star Award” from the Countess of Munster Trust.

Her CD of world premiere recordings – Chimera – was described as “splendid” in The Sunday Times. In 2009 the ABRSM volume Spectrum for Violin, which she compiled, edited and recorded, was released. She has also recently recorded two violin pieces by Oliver Knussen for NMC.

Malcolm Wilson Alexandra Wood

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John Woolrich is a much commissioned and frequently performed composer, a creative teacher and an original programmer, he is an important figure in British musical life.

Woolrich founded a group, the Composers Ensemble, and a festival, Hoxton New Music Days. In 1994 he was appointed the first Composer in Association to the Orchestra of St John’s, a post he held until 2000. His successful collaborations with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group led to his appointment in the 2002/3 season as an Artist-in-Association. He was Guest Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival in 2004 and Associate Artistic Director of the Festival 2005–2010. In 2010 Woolrich was appointed the Artistic Director at Dartington International Summer School, and Professor of Music at Brunel University.

Throughout the 1990s, Woolrich had a string of prestigious orchestral commissions which resulted in some of his most important works: his concertos for viola, oboe and cello. A CD of the viola and oboe concertos on the NMC label attracted particular attention and was acclaimed as the BBC’s ‘Record of the Week’. In 2001, Woolrich undertook a music theatre commission from BCMG and Trestle Theatre Company which resulted in Bitter Fruit, a masque for mime actors and ensemble.

Recent pieces include Capriccio for violin and strings commissioned by the Scottish Ensemble, Between the Hammer and the Anvil for the London Sinfonietta, a violin concerto for the Northern Sinfonia featuring Carolin Widmann and Falling Down, a double-bassoon concerto commissioned by the Feeney Trust for the CBSO and Margaret Cookhorn.

Christopher Yates began studying the viola at the age of seven and at sixteen won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. He studied there with Stephen Shingles and other teachers have included Bruno Giuranna, Nobuko Imai and the members of the Amadeus Quartet. Whilst still a student, Christopher gave the UK Premiere of Penderecki’s viola concerto in the presence of the composer, which was highly acclaimed in the national press. He was the first viola player to reach the national final of the LSO String Competition.

At the age of 22 he became the principal viola with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and became the viola section leader with the CBSO eighteen months later. He has appeared as a soloist with the CBSO on many occasions, playing the solo parts in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, Tippett’s Triple Concerto, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, Hindemith’s Trauermusik and Britten’s Lachrymae.

He has been a member of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group since joining the CBSO and has undertaken many tours, recordings and television and radio broadcasts with them. In January 2000 he gave the world premiere of Thea Musgrave’s Lamenting with Ariadne which was written for him and BCMG, and has given several performances of John Woolrich’s Envoi for viola and ensemble with them. Most recently he gave the premiere of Howard Skempton’s Only the Sound Remains for viola and ensemble.

Christopher YatesJohn Woolrich

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Birmingham Contemporary Music Group celebrates its 25th anniversary season in 2012/13. Emerging from within the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1987, the Group quickly established a reputation for brilliant performances, ambitious commissions, innovative collaborations, and a vibrant learning programme. With a central commitment to composers and the presentation of new work, BCMG’s open and inclusive approach takes people of all ages through the rich and fascinating world of contemporary music.

BCMG has premiered over 150 new works, many commissioned through its pioneering Sound Investment scheme. In addition to a busy schedule of concerts in the UK and abroad, BCMG runs an extensive learning and participation programme, working with young people in and out of school and with adults in a range of community settings, as well as presenting ground-breaking Family and Schools’ Concerts.

The Group has two Artists-in-Association, Oliver Knussen and John Woolrich, and Sir Simon Rattle is Founding Patron. BCMG has received a clutch of prestigious awards, has an extensive catalogue of CD recordings and broadcasts regularly on BBC radio.bcmg.org.uk

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BCMG FoundationI always seem to come away from BCMG events with my horizons broadened, my vision refreshed, and my sense of being part of this wonderful creative city reinvigorated. Through the BCMG Foundation, I feel close to the beating heart of this brilliant inclusive world-class team. John Christophers, BCMG Foundation member

The BCMG Foundation allows you to engage with aspects of our work that concert-goers don’t usually see. You can support the future development of BCMG’s performance and learning activity by becoming a Core Supporter from £1,000 per year.

You can also help with specific BCMG projects, with a donation starting from £250 per year. Projects for which we are currently seeking your support include:

• The world premiere of David Lang’s Crowd Out for 1,000 voices in June 2014

• Music Maze – a series of creative music-making workshops for 8–11 year-olds, linked to our regular evening concerts.

Sound InvestmentSound Investment is BCMG’s pioneering commissioning scheme, which involves individuals in the thrill of bringing alive new work by the most exciting composers of our time. Forthcoming premieres include works by Gerald Barry, Harrison Birtwistle, David Lang, Colin Matthews and many more. You can support BCMG’s commissioning programme from £15 per month. bcmg.org.uk/soundinvestment

Become a supporter of BCMG

Remember BCMG’s work in your WillComposers and the development of new work need every encouragement we can give. Leaving a legacy to BCMG enables us to support the future of new music even beyond our lifetime. Alan Woodfield, BCMG supporter

By remembering BCMG’s work in your Will you can give future generations a very special gift. We should be grateful if you would let us know if you have made provision for BCMG in your Will.BCMG is a registered charity no. 1001474

Would you like to get involved?Call Gwendolyn Tietze on: 0121 616 2621email: gwendolyn@bcmg.org.ukor go to: bcmg.org.uk/supportus

Make a donationWe always welcome one-off donations to support our programme. Any level of donation will make a difference to BCMG’s work. You can send us a cheque made out to ‘BCMG’, or donate online: bcmg.org.uk/donatenow

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BCMG Higher Education WorkshopsFor many students in higher education, May is a nerve-wracking month of revision and exams, however BCMG does its part to alleviate that stress by performing music by students in workshops at both the University of Birmingham and Birmingham Conservatoire.

As Ensemble-in-Association with the University of Birmingham, BCMG holds annual workshops for composition students. During May, we performed ten new works especially written for the ensemble by the students as part of their studies. Conducted by Christopher Austin, with an ensemble of fifteen musicians, the workshops are an unrivalled opportunity for the students to hear their music live and receive valuable feedback from both conductor and musicians.

A new element to this year’s programme was that earlier in the year, the students were able to attend masterclasses with percussionist Julian Warburton and harpist Céline Saout. This gave the students

a greater insight into writing specifically for those instruments. In previous years all the workshops have been held at CBSO Centre, however this year some were held in the University’s Elgar Concert Hall in the brand new Bramall Music Building – a fantastic venue with an excellent acoustic.

This coming Monday, BCMG will hold similar workshops with a slightly smaller ensemble of ten players for composition students at Birmingham Conservatoire. Conducted by Edwin Roxburgh the workshops will include eight new pieces written specially for the occasion.

For more information about this or our other projects and ways to become involved please visit bcmg.org.uk/learning or please contact Nancy Evans, BCMG Director of Learning and Participation or Jeremy Clay, BCMG Learning Co-ordinator on 0121 616 2616 or email nancy@bcmg.org.uk or jeremy@bcmg.org.uk.

Our work would not be possible without the generous support of individual donors, charitable trusts and foundations, partner organisations and statutory funders. We are particularly grateful to the following for supporting BCMG in our 25th anniversary season:

BCMG Sound InvestorsBCMG Foundation Members

City of Birmingham Orchestral Endowment Fund, The Barber Trust, William A Cadbury Charitable Trust, The Hinrichsen Foundation, S & D Lloyd Charity

A special thanks to filmmaker Barrie Gavin for Directing and Producing The Ensemble of Possibilities: 25 Years of BCMG

PhotographsUniversal Edition, Schott Promotion - Christopher Peter, Roland Haupt, Chris Christodoulou/Lebrecht Music & Arts, Alan Wood, Brian Voce, Maurice Foxall, Adrian Burrows, Clive Barda

Acknowledgements

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BCMG staffArtistic Team and Management

Founding Patron Simon RattleArtist-in-Association: Oliver Knussen, John WoolrichArtistic Director Stephen NewbouldExecutive Producer Jackie NewbouldFinance & Administration Manager Margaret AndersonFinance Assistant Galia BouhayedProductions Co-ordinator James CarpenterDirector of Development Gwendolyn TietzeDevelopment Co-ordinator Alex WrightMarketing Manager Tim RushbyDirector of Learning & Participation Nancy EvansLearning Co-ordinator Naomi WellingsLearning Co-ordinator Jeremy ClayLearning Trainee Ruta Vitkauskaite

Project Staff

Press Consultant Faith WilsonOrchestra Manager Mark Phillips

BCMG Board of Directors

Chair Stephen SaltaireFinancial Director Simon PurkessDeputy Chair Penny Collier

Directors

Cllr Sue Anderson, Kenneth Baird, Susanna Eastburn, Nike Jonah, Theresa Stewart, Blair Winton, Aaron Wright

Representatives

Jonathan Mayes (Arts Council England, West Midlands)Ulrich Heinen (BCMG player)Alexandra Wood (BCMG player) Stephen Maddock (CBSO Chief Executive)

BCMG, CBSO Centre, Berkley Street, Birmingham, B1 2LF Registered charity no: 1001474

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