Music and talk: The improvisatory basis of Peter Wiegold's Music

By Arthur Keegan-Bole, 05 December 2011

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Reviewed at CBSO Centre, Birmingham on 2 December 2011

Works by Wiegold

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

Peter Wiegold, Conductor

Marcus Barcham Stevens, Violin

Tim Lines, Clarinet

Simon Limbrick, Percussion

Ben Markland, Double Bass

Pastel-perfect hell: To See The Invisible

Charlotte Valori, 8th June

Emily Howard's new opera, an Aldeburgh Festival commission, takes an ambitiously modernist approach to a dystopian story of loneliness: a tough, but thought-provoking work.

****1

Proms at... Wilton’s: Conference of the Birds

Danny Riley, 2nd September

The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group present an ambitious mixture of experimental chamber music and disquieting monodrama.

***11

A bracing density of musical incident

Roy Westbrook, 3rd March

Oliver Knussen and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group excel in a cunningly linked group of works from the old (mid 1980s) to the brand new.

*****

Singing from the same Songbook

David Fay, 24th February

John Woolrich's Songbook project provided the vocal material on show at the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group recital at Wigmore Hall, featuring sopranos Gillian Keith and Rebecca von Lipinski.

***11

Birtwistle's early gems mesmerise

Katy Wright, 6th September

Lean yet nuanced performances from Oliver Knussen and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in commemoration of Harrison Birtwistle's 80th birthday

****1

Barbican’s Birtwistle at 80 over-eggs the pudding during its exploration of the chamber works

Penny Homer, 25th May

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group are masterful, but chamber works lack context during the birthday celebrations at Milton Court.

***11

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Arthur Keegan-Bole

Arthur is a composer currently focusing on opera. His desire to promote contemporary music led him to set up and co-edit The Octogenarian, a light-hearted classical music review pamphlet distributed in Bristol and to curate the annual CMV series of concerts.