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Friday Night Classics: Chaplin’s Circus
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Fri 3 Apr 2009 Symphony Hall

Conductor, composer and entertainer Carl Davis is world famous for his new scores for classic silent movies; tonight he presents two of Charlie Chaplin’s greatest silent comedies, accompanied live by the CBSO with music that mirrors every action, gesture and emotion on the screen. The Circus was the most successful silent film of all time, and finds Chaplin’s Little Tramp stumbling into a hilarious new profession. And as for The Cure - well, one critic wrote that “in terms of sheer belly-laughs, it may well be the funniest movie Chaplin ever made”. Decide for yourself as Symphony Hall transforms into a giant cinema. One thing’s for sure though - silent movies have never sounded better!
Carl Davis - conductor City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Davis: The Cure 23’ Chaplin: The Circus 72’
Family Concert: Carnival of the Animals
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Sun 19 Apr 2009 Symphony Hall

Gallop, hop or slither your way to Symphony Hall, as today’s concert is full of music inspired by the animal kingdom. Join the CBSO as it travels through jungles, oceans, farmyards and forests, including Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals with two- and four-legged friends from cuckoos to kangaroos, and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Roll up, roll up, and hear the elephants trumpet and roar in Stravinsky’s Circus Polka, but you had better beware of Rossini’s Thieving Magpie and Elgar’s Wild Bears! Why not come dressed up as your favourite animal? FREE CREATIVE WORKSHOPS AND MUSIC in the foyers from 1.30pm
Michael Seal - conductor Tommy Pearson - presenter City of Birmingham Young Voices City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Inspired by Bach
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Wed 22 Apr 2009 Symphony Hall

More composers have been inspired by Bach than by any other composer. Tonight Andris Nelsons takes us to Brahms’ final symphony with its finale based on music from a Bach cantata by way of Berg’s highly expressive violin concerto which quotes a Bach chorale at its emotional climax and the tiny trumpet concerto in which Arvo Pärt incorporates the great man’s name. Elgar’s sumptuous arrangement of some genuine Bach sets the evening off in splendid style. 6.15pm- Pre Concert Talk- Inspired by Bach Stephen Johnson, presenter of BBC Radio 3’s Discovering Music, explores the hidden connections behind tonight’s programme.
Andris Nelsons - conductor Isabelle van Keulen - violin Jonathan Holland - trumpet City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Bach (orch. Elgar): Fantasia and Fugue in C minor 8’ Berg: Violin Concerto 25’ Pärt: Concerto Piccolo on B-A-C-H 8’ Brahms: Symphony No. 4 42’
IgorFest: Biblical Works
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Wed 6 May 2009 Symphony Hall

Though he was never especially strict in his Church attendance or attitudes, religion played an increasingly important part in Stravinsky’s output, and his later works based on Biblical texts are among his most profound and original. Tonight Sakari Oramo offers up four varied pieces based on Old Testament stories, culminating in Threni, Stravinsky’s extraordinary setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. There is also a New Testament counterpart in A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer. 6.15pm Pre-concert talk - Biblical Works
Sakari Oramo - conductor Roderick Williams -baritone
Stravinsky: Babel 5’ Stravinsky: Abraham and Isaac 10’ Stravinsky: The Flood 24’ Stravinsky: A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer 15’ Stravinsky: Threni 30’
IgorFest: The Fireworks Finale
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Sat 9 May 2009 Symphony Hall

For the grand finale of our Stravinsky project, we return to the composer’s Russian roots with some musical fireworks. His 1922 comic opera Mavra - dedicated to Tchaikovsky - is a wickedly witty setting of a Pushkin tale set in a Russian village. In his glittering early Fireworks we can hear the influence of his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov, while his strange, visionary 1912 cantata The King of the Stars (composed at the same time as The Rite of Spring) sounds like nothing else on this earth. And there could be no other way to end this amazing journey than with the Rite - still, nearly a century after its scandalous Paris premiere, a piece which astounds with every performance. 6.15pm Pre-concert talk - The Fireworks Finale
Sakari Oramo - conductor Anita Watson - Parasha Liora Grodnikaite - The Neighbour Elizabeth Sikora - The Mother Robert Gardiner - The Hussar City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Stravinsky: Fireworks 4’ Stravinsky: Four Russian Peasant Songs 4’ Stravinsky: Mavra 27’ Stravinsky: The King of the Stars 5’ Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring 35’
A Pastoral Symphony
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Tue 12 May 2009 Symphony Hall

Like so many city dwellers then and now, Beethoven took great pleasure in escaping to the countryside, and captured these feelings in his Pastoral Symphony, premiered 200 years ago in the same concert as his fiery Fifth. Acclaimed Scottish conductor Douglas Boyd also takes us to the French countryside for a selection of Canteloube’s glorious French folk-songs, including the haunting Baïlèro, sung by one of our greatest sopranos. The imposing northern forests of Sibelius’ Tapiola offer a darker view of the natural world.
Douglas Boyd - conductor Joan Rodgers - soprano City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Sibelius: Tapiola 20’ Canteloube: Songs of the Auvergne 25’ Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral) 42’
Symphony Ballroom!
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Fri 15 May 2009 Symphony Hall

Dust off those sequins, put on your dancing shoes... after last year’s sell-out performances, Symphony Ballroom is back! The CBSO’s symphonic big band, together with inspirational arranger/conductor John Wilson, will once again be joined by dancers from BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing for a show that combines great music, great dancing and is bound to get your toes tapping.
John Wilson - conductor Camilla Dallerup - dancer Ian Waite - dancer City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Ballroom!
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Sat 16 May 2009 Symphony Hall

Dust off those sequins, put on your dancing shoes... after last year’s sell-out performances, Symphony Ballroom is back! The CBSO’s symphonic big band, together with inspirational arranger/conductor John Wilson, will once again be joined by dancers from BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing for a show that combines great music, great dancing and is bound to get your toes tapping.
John Wilson - conductor Camilla Dallerup - dancer Ian Waite - dancer
The Emperor Concerto
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Wed 20 May 2009 Symphony Hall

Premiered 200 years ago in 1809, Beethoven’s last and grandest concerto is a work on a truly epic scale, its torrents of notes providing the soloist with both a great challenge and a fantastic opportunity to shine, a task to which Birmingham favourite Freddy Kempf is well equal. 1809 was also the year of Mendelssohn’s birth, and we continue our bicentenary celebrations with his most popular and tuneful symphony. Finally, we stay in Italy for another of Tchaikovsky’s passionate tales of doomed love - this time, the lovers out of Dante’s Inferno.
Vassily Sinaisky - conductor Freddy Kempf - piano City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 (Emperor) 38’ Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 (Italian) 26’ Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini 24’
Mahler’s Resurrection
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Wed 27 May 2009 Symphony Hall

Andris Nelsons is the latest CBSO music director to bring us his interpretation of Mahler’s huge, all-embracing Resurrection symphony, long a CBSO speciality. Featuring a gigantic orchestra - on and offstage - as well as vocalists and chorus, this is one of the biggest statements in late-romantic art. Mahler’s emotional intensity, his echoing trumpet calls and his way of dividing the orchestra into different groups all find a contemporary echo in a recent work by leading German composer Jörg Widmann. 6.15pm Pre-concert talk - Premiere! - Jorg Widmann Eminent German composer Jörg Widmann talks to Stephen Maddock about his Antiphon - which receives its UK premiere tonight.
Andris Nelsons - conductor Sarah Fox - soprano Mihoko Fujimura - mezzo-soprano City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Widmann: Antiphon (UK premiere) 15’ Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection) 77’
Mahler’s Resurrection
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Sun 31 May 2009 Symphony Hall

Andris Nelsons is the latest CBSO music director to bring us his interpretation of Mahler’s huge, all-embracing Resurrection symphony, long a CBSO speciality. Featuring a gigantic orchestra - on and offstage - as well as vocalists and chorus, this is one of the biggest statements in late-romantic art. Mahler’s emotional intensity, his echoing trumpet calls and his way of dividing the orchestra into different groups all find a contemporary echo in a recent work by leading German composer Jörg Widmann.
Andris Nelsons - conductor Sarah Fox - soprano Mihoko Fujimura - mezzo-soprano City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection) 77’
Shostakovich’s Fifth
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Sat 6 Jun 2009 Symphony Hall

Three composers on a learning curve. Shostakovich’s epic Symphony is a powerful music portrait of a great artist learning the hard way about tyranny. Composed at the height of Stalin’s terror, its triumphant finish is either a bitterly ironic comment on its times, or an heroic victory for freedom. Decide for yourself - either way, it’s a gripping journey. Britten’s ravishing song-cycle finds him at the start of a lifelong love-affair with the human voice - but it’s no less magical for it. And Mahler’s teenage Symphonic Prelude is a real find, packed with all its composer’s trademark drama and angst.
John Storgårds - conductor Barbara Hannigan - soprano City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Mahler: Symphonic Prelude 10’ Britten: Les Illuminations 23’ Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 47’
Tchaikovsky’s Little Russian
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Wed 17 Jun 2009 Symphony Hall

After Hamlet in November, Andris Nelsons offers us another of Tchaikovsky’s responses to Shakespeare, a passionate fantasy overture based on the kind of story of doomed love to which the composer was naturally drawn. But Tchaikovsky is not always doom and gloom, and his Second Symphony uses folk music to create a tuneful work of great charm. Britten, a more openly gay composer than Tchaikovsky, nevertheless suffered his own share of inner torment - but in his Serenade we hear his acutely sympathetic response to great English poems from across the ages. This concert is followed by a Members’ Afternoon Tea with Elspeth Dutch, in conversation with Christopher Morley of The Birmingham Post. 1.15pm Pre-concert talk - The Little Russian Roderic Dunnett of The Independent gives a user’s guide to Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony
Andris Nelsons - conductor Elspeth Dutch - horn Toby Spence - tenor City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet 21’ Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings 26’ Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 (Little Russian) 33’
Tchaikovsky’s Little Russian
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Thu 18 Jun 2009 Symphony Hall

After Hamlet in November, Andris Nelsons offers us another of Tchaikovsky’s responses to Shakespeare, a passionate fantasy overture based on the kind of story of doomed love to which the composer was naturally drawn. But Tchaikovsky is not always doom and gloom, and his Second Symphony uses folk music to create a tuneful work of great charm. Britten, a more openly gay composer than Tchaikovsky, nevertheless suffered his own share of inner torment - but in his Serenade we hear his acutely sympathetic response to great English poems from across the ages. 6.15pm Pre-concert talk - The Little Russian Roderic Dunnett of The Independent gives a user’s guide to Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony
Andris Nelsons - conductor Elspeth Dutch - horn Toby Spence - tenor City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet 21’ Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings 26’ Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 (Little Russian) 33’
A Hero’s Life
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Wed 24 Jun 2009 Symphony Hall

To close his first season, Andris Nelsons returns to his love of Richard Strauss, with the epic, semi-autobiographical tone poem in which the composer charts his marriage, his battles with his critics and his own earlier artistic creations. Haydn’s most famous mass - named for a great hero - also incorporates the sounds of war, and like Strauss, the composer pleads for a peace - Dona Nobis Pacem - that eventually arrives.
Andris Nelsons - conductor Claire Booth - soprano Hilary Summers - mezzo-soprano Andrew Kennedy - tenor Graeme Broadbent - bass City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Haydn: Nelson Mass 43’ Strauss: Ein Heldenleben 46’
A Hero’s Life
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Sat 27 Jun 2009 Symphony Hall

To close his first season, Andris Nelsons returns to his love of Richard Strauss, with the epic, semi-autobiographical tone poem in which the composer charts his marriage, his battles with his critics and his own earlier artistic creations. Haydn’s most famous mass - named for a great hero - also incorporates the sounds of war, and like Strauss, the composer pleads for a peace - Dona Nobis Pacem - that eventually arrives. c.9.15pm Post-concert conversation With Andris Nelsons and Stephen Maddock.
Andris Nelsons - conductor Claire Booth - soprano Hilary Summers - mezzo-soprano Andrew Kennedy - tenor Graeme Broadbent - bass City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Haydn: Nelson Mass 43’ Strauss: Ein Heldenleben 46’
No Place Like Home
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Tue 30 Jun 2009 Symphony Hall

The brilliant young Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård, making his second visit to the CBSO, brings with him the charming Flute Concerto by his compatriot Carl Nielsen, for which he will be joined by the CBSO’s outstanding flute section leader. The light-hearted side of the Danish character which Nielsen portrays here finds a good match in a tuneful suite by his contemporary Sibelius, drawn from the same patriotic pageant that also produced Finlandia. Dvorák was just as concerned as these two composers with reflecting national character through music, and his stirring Seventh Symphony is reckoned by many to be his finest orchestral work. 6.15pm Pre-concert talk - The Player’s Perspective • Dvorák’s Seventh Introduced by David Gregory - CBSO violinist.
Thomas Søndergård - conductor Marie-Christine Zupancic - flute City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Sibelius: Scènes historiques - Suite No. 1 20’ Nielsen: Flute Concerto 20’ Dvorák: Symphony No. 7 38’