Murmurs

As the world grows closer together, our lives become ever more entwined. Borders between different cultures blur, broadening our understanding of the world – and the society we live in. Incorporating a musical instrument from a different musical tradition is just one way composers have reacted to our increasingly borderfree world – and so we invite Wu Wei, one of the world’s best players of the Chinese instrument, the Sheng, to join us. He will perform the world premiere of a specially-commissioned Sheng Concerto by Korean-born BCMG Apprentice Composer in Residence, Donghoon Shin.

The concert opens with Rebecca Saunders’ setting of Molly Bloom’s monologue from James Joyce’s Ulysses which triumphantly finished the work without stop or pause, and has become a cultural hallmark mirroring modern life: dissolving the borders between thought and reality in a stream of consciousness. Rebecca Saunders has spent her career in search of a true musical equivalent of experience, and we close the concert with her evocative 2009 work, Murmurs.