Billy Childs' Saxophone Concerto sings a song of America

Por Eleanor Knight, 10 mayo 2026

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Crítica hecha desde Barbican Hall, Londres el 8 mayo 2026

Du Yun, Hundred Heads

Childs, Diaspora (Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra)

Adams, Harmonielehre

Elena Schwarz, Dirección

Steven Banks, Saxofón

BBC Symphony Orchestra

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The young Spanish violinist proves an ardent advocate for a work originally dismissed as a “Hollywood Concerto” as the BBC Symphony Orchestra closes its Barbican season.

****1

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Yeol Eum Son’s Britten Piano Concerto formed the evening’s centre of gravity, played with lucid line, structural command and sudden fire. In Brahms’ Second Symphony, Sakari Oramo found conviction, proportion and a warmth that felt earned rather than applied.

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Sakari Oramo and Yeol Eum Son summon up vivid landscapes

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Yeol Eum Son's superb performances of Bartók and Finzi are matched by intense and heady readings of Stravinsky and Weir by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo.

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Fine Lindberg and Stravinsky double bill from the BBC Symphony

Roy Westbrook, 6th February

After a performance of Magnus Lindberg’s First Violin Concerto by Lisa Batiashvili at the Barbican, Stravinsky’s Perséphone stands the test of time.

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UK premiere of Julia Wolfe’s unEarth impresses on scale, not substance

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Wolfe's climate-change oratorio, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, already feels out of date.

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Eleanor Knight

Eleanor is a writer and librettist. Her work has appeared in all kinds of places from the Royal Opera House to the foot tunnels beneath the Elephant and Castle roundabout, and she has written arts reviews and features for British papers and magazines. Having begun her working life in theatre, she switched to publishing and later taught creative writing at the University of Brighton and Birkbeck. Currently based in the Netherlands, she teaches at the University of Utrecht. Eleanor plays violin and sings, though not usually at the same time, and has recently taken up speed-skating.

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