London Contemporary Orchestra doing Messiaen, Jonny Greenwood, other good ones

I kind of can't believe the quality of musicianship in this town. I saw the London Contemporary Orchestra this past Friday, and I'd be surprised to find out if anyone in the ensemble is over the age of 25. The conductor, Hugh Brunt, graduated college just last year and already leads with a sort of balance of care and Boulez-esque precision that makes for killer shows in modern music. Brad Lubman has that too, and he's one of my favorites.

Anyway it was a sold out show, in St. Luke's church, which is a really cool venue with a kind of glass and wood box inside of the old church building, and featured the premiere of a new work by Emily Hall, called Put Flesh On! which was for orchestra, solo cello, and mixed electronics. On first listen I thought it sounded cool and that was about it, but the more I think about it the more I like it. The interplay between the soloist, orchestra, and recorded sounds is really interesting, and I think it takes hearing the whole piece to figure out what is going on.

Previous to that in the evening were Xenakis's Le Sacrifice and Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn, and strings. Sensitive performances were given to both, and I'm waking up to just how important Britten is as a composer over here. He doesn't get performed too much at home, but I've only been here a month and have already heard three of his pieces live and been assigned three more large scale ones to listen to an analyze a bit of. There's a really well balanced mix of all sorts of things going on with him, and the more I listen to the more I realize it. Xenakis was awesome as expected, short as it was.

After these three came the expected highlight of the evening, Jonny Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver. Hearing this live, especially the pizzicato section, was something I'd been looking forward to since first hearing it, so my view is probably a bit biased...but it was gorgeous, and I was just plain excited to be there, and felt like I did at a lot of rock shows as a kid through it. If you get the chance, see this piece live.

The evening's closer was Messiaen's Les Offrandes Oubliees. It's impossible to put Messiaen into words, especially considering how many people have tried and failed. Just listen to it. I haven't been that moved at a concert in quite some time. Between those two I'd put this on my list of all time favorite shows right alongside Radiohead this summer, Music for Eighteen Musicians two years ago, and Bright Eyes at the Disney Hall a while back too. It put me in a good mood all weekend, which got me working a lot on the violin/viola duo. Which is what I'm off to work on now. Tomorrow night George Benjamin conducts the London Sinfonietta in the first UK performance of Grisey's Les Espaces Acoustiques, at Queen Elizabeth Hall, so I'm looking forward to that too. Cheers.