An assembly & Ensemble x.y: Finnissy’s Piano Concerto no.2

Friday 27th April | St John’s Waterloo

Anthony Leung: Three Concert Pieces (I)
Paul Newland: locus
Bryn Harrison: Six Symmetries
Cassandra Miller: Philip The Wanderer
Michael Finnissy: Piano Concerto no.2

Piano: Joseph Havlat
Conductor: Jack Sheen

An assembly and Ensemble x.y join forces to deliver a unique programme of music for large ensemble which tugs at the boundaries of extreme stasis and activity, from the singularly suspended sounds of Leung’s ‘Three Concert Pieces (I)’ to Michael Finnissy’s outrageously kinetic Piano Concerto no.2.

Between these two poles unfolds an exploration of textural and structural kineticism, via the micro-tectonic layers of Paul Newland’s ‘locus’, Bryn Harrison’s orchestral blackhole ‘Six Symmetries’, and the stumbling euphoria of Cassandra Miller’s ‘Philip The Wanderer’.

‘Few composers working today have managed to connect contemporary music’s expressive power as convincingly with its critical, intellectual potential.’
– The Guardian on the music of Michael Finnissy

‘… microscopic and cosmic in its dimensions. It was awe-inspiring.’
– Sound Expanse on Bryn Harrison’s ‘Six Symmetries’

‘[Cassandra Miller’s music] allows us to hear and feel in new ways.’
– TEMPO Magazine