Daniel Kidane

Aloud (World premiere, performed by Julia Fischer, the LPO & conducted by Edward Gardner

Royal Festival Hall (March 2024)

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been the subject, or at least the subtext, of quite a lot of music already, but what I’ve heard has been mostly eulogies to Ukranian resolve. Daniel Kidane’s new work for violin and orchestra, Aloud, is different. With a Russian mother and Ukrainian in-laws, he doesn’t adopt an overtly partisan stance. Instead the 25-minute piece, which draws from a Cossack folksong about an injured warrior, is (as the composer says) a reflection on ordinary people suffering “the scourge of war”.

Its first section suggests how much life is fragmented by conflict. The violin soloist may occasionally have lyrical moments, but only against a background of disconcerting, dislocated staccato rhythms and the dull intermittent thud of basses and drums.

There’s a change halfway through when the violins soars into a rhapsody above much less sour harmonies. It’s a temporary respite; soon the turmoil builds up again. … The textures are striking and I admired the work’s integrity.

Richard Morrison, The Times ****

[Kidane’s] concerto, subtitled Aloud, is a cry of protest against armed conflict, particularly the Russo-Ukrainian War.

… There were many striking inventions … in the orchestral music, which under the conductor Edward Gardner’s balletic direction danced and parried in strikingly beautiful sounds of marimba, pizzicato strings and seductively liquid clarinets.

Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph

At the Southbank Centre, a new work for violin and orchestra by Daniel Kidane similarly set out to make a statement. Entitled Aloud, it is of potentially concerto length at 25 minutes, but not a concerto, Kidane says, because its tone and structure determine otherwise. A list of Kidane’s concerns lie in the background, from the war between Russian and Ukraine, two countries with which he has close connections, to discontent with UK policies towards music. He likens the work to a “scream of frustration”, and a tense, uneasy tone rarely feels far from the surface. As though to soften the gritty message, the orchestra makes some seductive sounds and includes – again like the MacMillan – a glimmering line-up of percussion, with xylophone, tubular bells and tam-tam, but neither mood seems able to impose itself. Julia Fischer was the high-profile soloist, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under music director Edward Gardner made sure the music constantly bubbled with detail, alive with interesting ideas.

Richard Fairman, Financial Times

As a one time violinist with the Bruch and Mendelssohn concertos under his fingers, Daniel Kidane knows how to write for violin and orchestra from the inside. On the strength of this assured first performance, Aloud is that rare event among new violin concertos, staging an often violent and unpredictable battle between soloist and ensemble, in which neither side is cowed by the other.

The ostensible melodic premise is a Cossack folk song, reflecting Kidane’s Russian and Ukrainian heritage on his father’s side. A low-key, atmospheric opening, contracting and relaxing into violin recitatives, earns the right to the turmoil that occupies much of the opening movement.

… A second movement … delivered nervy Bartókian tension and left Fischer alone for a substantial cadenza. With the slightest hint of an up-beat, the music vanished, leaving behind an imaginary finale, like the Cheshire Cat’s smile or the ghost of a hollow laugh, and the welcome sense that a second listening would shed light on its satisfyingly elusive form.

Peter Quantrill, The Strad

Sun Poem performed by the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle at the Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House, Wednesday 3rd May 2023, 7pm

But the highlight of the half was a new work by Daniel Kidane, Sun Poem, a beautiful piece written as a tribute to fatherhood, the young British composer having recently lost his father as well as welcoming his own newborn son. Muted trumpets, marimbas and percussion establish a complex set of rhythms with sudden bright pinpoints of sound and shimmering strings – quite an orchestral feast which Rattle and the band have been playing regularly.

***** Steve Moffatt, Limelight

Sun Poem performed by the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle

The Barbican, Sunday 11 September 2022, 7PM

Inspired by two emotional family milestones (the death of Kidane’s father and the arrival of his first child), Sun Poem tickled the ears right from its first tentative trumpet notes, quickly building in momentum and cohesion until the whole orchestra, glinting and frenetic, raced onwards, glued together by tiny phrases with contours resembling bell chimes. (...) Sun Poem was taut, terrific and excellently played.

★★★★ Mark Allan, The Times

Rattle has made a point, each season, of including a brand new work in his opening concert, too, and here it was Daniel Kidane's Sun Poem. Kidane describes it as a lullaby for his infant son; it’s certainly vividly coloured, with spiky brass writing that sometimes recalls Janáček; it’s an effective opener (...).

★★★★★ Andrew Clements, The Guardian

The new work this season comes courtesy of Daniel Kidane, whose Sun Poem provides an attractive, taut start to the concert.

Mark Pullinger, Gramophone

Sun Poem (world premiere), performed by the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle

Edinburgh International Festival, The Usher Hall, 18 August 2022

Under Rattle's direction, the LSO did full justice to British composer Kidane's marvellous new piece Sun Poem, and plenty more besides.

The piece takes its cue and its title from Sun Poem by the Barbadian writer Kamau Braithwaite. This explores ideas of heritage and patrilineal descent, themes that resonated deeply with Kidane, who’s just become a father himself. Rather than expressing these ideas through a rosy nostalgia, Kidane found vivid and very precisely judged musical metaphors for them.

(...) his musical passions from Russian chant to Messiaen have been absorbed into a distinctive musical language.

A single muted trumpet note sounded hesitantly, which gave birth to another note in the flutes, then another in the brass. Suddenly the whole orchestra seemed to be capering madly, suggesting an enticing future ahead of the new-born. This soon gave way to more reflective music, with glowing tendrils of clarinet and marimba, suggesting the awareness of the past that helps us make sense of the future. That idea might sound ponderous in words, but it wasn’t at all so when expressed in this beautifully made, engaging piece.

Ivan Hewitt, The Daily Telegraph ★★★★★

We also had the premiere of Daniel Kidane’s Sun Poem, a piece he wrote about the journey of fatherhood. The music moves from the uneasy nervous energy of its opening through to something warmer and more beautiful, perhaps reflecting the emotions that a new father feels. Over ten minutes Kidane uses his orchestral canvas with great skill, the tintinnabulating winds and percussion twinkling against beautifully smooth string writing.

Simon Thompson, The Times ★★★★

Movements for Harpsichord and Strings (world premiere)

New World Centre, New World Symphony & Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord), Florida (December 2021)

The audience gave the work an enthusiastic response (...) an intriguing composer whose other works should be programmed.

Lawrence Budmen, South Florida Classical Review

Revel (world premiere)

The Kanneh-Masons, BBC Proms - Royal Albert Hall (August 2021)

Kidane’s score is one that hums with possibility. Dawn breaks with shimmers of glass harmonica, bowed cymbal, and flute; a spiky dance breaks out full of Stravinskian cross-rhythms and stabs of clarinet. (…) Revel is bright and tonal, energetic and clean – nothing to frighten the horses, but likeable, warm, and inviting all the same.

Ben Poore, musicomh.com ****

Steve Reich-esque cross-rhythms introducing the city; clashing layers as the sound systems collide.

Erica Jeal, The Guardian ****

It’s a fluently composed piece and enjoyable

Barry Millington, Evening Standard

Be Still

San Francisco Symphony (June 2021)

Mr. Kidane’s piece, receiving its American premiere, could hardly have been replaced, for as Mr. Salonen explained from the stage, “Be Still” was written in response to the pandemic, its first performance having occurred in January via live stream from Manchester, England. Scored almost completely for strings, the work is meditative but not inert. It tenses and relaxes repeatedly, until a twisted version of its theme asserts itself (a manifestation of our collective anxiety perhaps). A crescendo further destabilizes things. The coda comes as the first violinist enters into something of a duet with a nearby percussionist using a bow against crotales to summon the faintest tintinnabulations, until an abrupt silence brings the nine-minute work to a close. It may sound like a dig to say the music seemed to last longer on this occasion, but the observation is meant as a compliment.

David Mermelstein, Wall Street Journal

Towards Resolution

Royal Northern Sinfonia at Sage Gateshead (May 2021)

Daniel Kidane’s Towards Resolution left me wanting more. In a mere three minutes he re-imagined a Purcell fantasia in clusters of descending notes, essentially static but with glissandos and tremolos disturbing the surface

Bernard Hughes, Arts Desk ****

Be Still (world premiere)

Manchester Camerata at Stoller Hall (February 2021)

One of the best I’ve heard from this British composer: an exercise in atmospheric string tremolando chords, spookily embellished by bowed crotales, in which the harmonies gradually became more intense and dissonant. It had shape and substance.

Richard Morrison, The Times

Daniel Kidane’s Be Still, for string orchestra and bowed crotales, is quite definitely the music of 2020, reflecting (as he says) on the experience of lockdown and losing the everyday markers of passing time: but it’s also intended to create inner stillness and calm. Beginning with high tremolo strings, almost pulse-less, it extends their sound through the orchestra’s compass, as a rhythm begins and chords form fleetingly, building to a crescendo and ending with a lofty solo violin over a sustained sound carpet.

Robert Beale, The Arts Desk

Woke

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, London (September 2019)

Daniel Kidane’s Woke raised the curtain with a ceremonial blast. Its rhythmic and textural permutations at times sounded like a 1950s film score, at others suggesting a sinister, quasi-militaristic atmosphere.

Nick Kimberly, Evening Standard

“[Woke] launched off in dancing rhythms, the string chords rising and falling in waves under the chirruping winds were not so far from Steve Reich’s minimalism, but the harmonies were darkly suggestive of struggle. Towards the end the music retreated to a lonely place, but revived to end if not in a blaze of glory, at least of hope.

Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph

Woke is a dynamic concert opener, energised by driving percussion rhythms. The large orchestra is skilfully deployed for diverse colours while always retaining a clarity of texture. The music eventually settles into lush, sonorous harmonies.

Gavin Dixon, The Arts Desk

Composer Daniel Kidane says he wants to channel his optimism for the future through music, and the result is a brightly coloured tone-poem which the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo’s genial direction that turns into an agreeable aperitif for what is to come.

Michael Church, The Independent

The evening began with a new piece, Woke, by Daniel Kidane, commissioned by the BBC and performed for the very first time. It is a short, vigorous work with a rousing finale but it is not a ‘comfortable’ piece that one can listen to and relax with at the end of a working day. Kidane says himself in the programme notes that behind his urge to create an energetic piece was the wish for a subtle message – for us all to be more ‘woke’, concerning awareness of social and racial justice. He fully achieved his goal and started the Last Night with a bang.

Margarida Mota-Bull, Seen-and-Heard International

But I end at the beginning, with Daniel Kidane’s Woke, the title reminding us to be constantly aware of racism, but the music is inherently interesting in itself, kick-started by a wood-block (like a woodpecker) and teeming into life with long-held strings and chattering parts underneath, eventually coming to a unanimous halt before more rat-a-tat-tat pulses reigniting the music, before eventually building to a ringing climax, though not before the modern plastic equivalent of the ancient bullroarer made air. Electrifying and energising.

Nick Breckenfield, Classial Source

Uplifting and energising, [Woke] was also designed to leave one thinking about social and racial injustice in the world. This it certainly did, although the overriding sense one was left with was simply that of an immensely skilful composition.

Sam Smith, MusicOMH