KABELAC Mystery of Time
KORNGOLD Violin Concerto Op.35 in D
Viktor ULLMAN Don Quixote tanzt Fandango
Jan Vaclav VORISEK Symphony in D major

Tomas Hanus conductor
Eugene Ugorski violin

In order to achieve a full house, we have to distribute more tickets that there are studio seats as not everyone who receives free tickets uses them. Please arrive in plenty of time, as admission is on a first come, first served basis.

AARON JAY KERNIS Newly Drawn Sky (UK premiere)
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No 1
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Symphony No. 4 in F minor

Andrew Litton conductor
Stephen Hough piano

'I don’t know if I like it', Vaughan Williams famously said of his apocalyptic Fourth Symphony, 'but it's what I meant when I wrote it'. Premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Adrian Boult in 1935, it is revived to mark the 50th anniversary of VW's death and the 25th of Boult's. Tonight's soloist and conductor recorded a prize-winning live cycle of the Rachmaninov piano concertos in Dallas in 2004: though revised when he was 44, the First preserves the 'youthful freshness' of the composer's teenage inspiration. Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Aaron Jay Kernis wrote Newly Drawn Sky as 'a reminiscence of the first summer night spent with my twins by the ocean, and the changing colours of the summer sky at dusk'.

Pre-concert talk, 6.00pm
Fountain Room
An introduction to tonight’s music.
Music Intro This concert is a Music Intro concert, with tickets at only £5 for families. Please see website for further details.

BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor Op. 37
SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Concerto No.2

Rumon Gamba conductor
Danjulo Ishizaka cello
Shai Wosner piano

Danjulo Ishizaka and Shai Wosner are members of BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artist Scheme, which is sponsored by Aviva plc.

In order to achieve a full house, we have to distribute more tickets that there are studio seats as not everyone who receives free tickets uses them. Please arrive in plenty of time, as admission is on a first come, first served basis.

BRETT DEAN Ariel’s Music (UK premiere)
SIBELIUS The Tempest suite

John Storgards conductor
Michael Collins clarinet

Richard Goulding Prospero
Sasha Higgins Miranda
Benedict Hopper Ariel/Caliban
Geoff Breton Ferdinand
Phillip Langhorne

Sibelius’s music for The Tempest was composed in between the Seventh Symphony and Tapiola, at the high point of his final flowering before his 30-year retreat into silence. Finnish conductor John Storgårds conducts music from the composer’s two evocative orchestral suites performed in the context of performances of scenes from Shakespeare’s original play, transporting audiences to Prospero’s magical island. Brett Dean’s clarinet concerto was premiered in Brisbane in 1995. The Ariel of the title refers to the daughter of actor/director Paul Michael Glaser, who died of Aids, aged 7, in 1988, after her mother Elisabeth had contracted the virus through an emergency blood transfusion.

Pre-concert talk, 6.00pm
Fountain Room
An introduction to tonight’s music.

BBC Music Intro Concert
This concert is a Music Intro concert, with tickets at only £5 for families. See website for further details.

KAIJA SAARIAHO Adriana Mater (UK Premiere)

Edward Gardner conductor
Solveig Kringelborn soprano
Monica Groop mezzo-soprano
Gordon Gietz tenor
Jyrki Korhonen bass
BBC Singers

Premiered in Paris in April 2006, Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's second opera comes to the UK courtesy of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which previously introduced her first opera, L'Amour de loin, to the UK in 2002. In Adriana Mater, Saariaho takes as her theme the brutality of war. A woman is raped, a son is born; will the son take after his mother or his father? The son, learning of his violent conception, vows to kill his father - but an unexpected twist brings an unexpected end. The opera's UK concert premiere is conducted by English National Opera's new young Music Director, Edward Gardner.

'The action has the elemental quality of Greek tragedy.' Sunday Times

'A work on an emotional scale only occasionally heard in contemporary opera...searingly painful in its depiction of humanity.' New York Times

Pre-concert Talk, 6.00pm
Venue to be confirmed
An introduction to tonight's music.

Part of the Barbican's Great Performers series

Periklis KOUKOS Midsummer Night's Dream Suite (UK premiere)
WALTON As You Like It Suite
PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet (suite - selected by conductor)

Constantinos Carydis conductor
Elizabeth Watts soprano

In order to achieve a full house, we have to distribute more tickets that there are studio seats as not everyone who receives free tickets uses them. Please arrive in plenty of time, as admission is on a first come, first served basis.