June 2013 sees the premiere of Harrison Birtwistle’s first new song-cycle in nearly a decade when Mark Padmore (tenor) and Andrew West (piano) give the first performance of Songs from the Same Earth. Jointly commissioned by the Britten-Pears Foundation to mark the Britten centenary and the Royal Philharmonic Society for their bicentenary, the new work will be heard for the first time in the Snape Maltings Concert Hall during this year’s Aldeburgh Festival.
The commission reunites Birtwistle with poet David Harsent, with whom he has previous collaborated on the operas The Minotaur and Gawain. The latter will be heard later this year in a new production as part of a major feature of Birtwistle’s music at the Salzburg Festival.
Further summer premieres include the first UK performance of The Moth Requiem at the BBC Proms and the Swiss premiere of In Broken Images at the Lucerne Festival.
