News / Latest News / Groundbreaking BBC commission
Tuesday 6th January 2009
John Hardy has been commissioned to write music for an innovative project by the BBC Concert Orchestra.
In February the orchestra will be performing a concert inspired by chance, with pieces by composers including Mozart, Ives and Stravinsky who have used an element of randomness in the composition of their pieces.
The highlight of the concert will be the premiere of a single 12-minute piece written by 12 leading composers including John Hardy. During winter each composer will write a minute-long section of the piece, with the final order of the sections decided by rolling a dice. As they write their section the composers will each provide a title which becomes part of the complete title of the piece.
Charles Hazlewood will conduct the premiere in the BBC Concert Orchestra's Music & Chance concert, featuring Mozart's A Musical Dice Game, Schnittke's Moz-Art a la Haydn, Colin Matthews' To Compose Without the Least Knowledge of Music, Ives' The Unanswered Question and Stravinsky's Jeu de cartes, plus music by Cage and Stockhausen. The concert is at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on Tuesday 17 February at 7.30pm, and will be recorded for broadcast by BBC Radio 3. Read the BBC advert for the concert.
Other composers writing sections of the new piece include, in no particular order, Anne Dudley, Will Gregory, Fung Lam, Rabih Abou-Khalil, Tansy Davies, Paul Patterson, Pet Shop Boys and Gwilym Simcock.
For tickets and further information from the BBC visit bbc.co.uk/concertorchestra or call 0871 663 2500.