The Hallé Presents: Adams Conducts Harmonium

John Adams makes his much-anticipated return to the Hallé to conduct a selection of his best-loved works.

In a full-circle event, Slonimsky’s Earbox – dedicated to the Russian-American musicologist and his legendary Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns – returns to The Bridgewater Hall, where the Hallé gave the world premiere in 1996. Mary Bevan, renowned for her ‘dramatic wit and vocal control’ (Opera), takes a starring role in Le Livre de Baudelaire, Adams’ reimagining of Debussy’s Cinq Poèmes de Charles Baudelaire.

We will also enjoy her version of Pat’s contemplative, hopeful aria from Adams’ 1987 opera, Nixon in China. The voices of the Hallé Choir will feature in Harmonium, a surging poetic soundscape regarded as one of the composer’s key minimalist compositions.