Show Details

This year, the BMF welcomes the brand-new Mahler Foundation Festival Orchestra, establishing a partnership based on a shared artistic commitment to young musicians, to heritage and innovation, and to the future direction of classical music. Invited by the Mahler Foundation, the new generation British conductor John Warner founded the orchestra following the Foundation’s commitment to use Mahler’s music, vision and innovative spirit to inspire and unite audiences worldwide to face the challenges of the 21st century.
Four concerts in this special series combine works by young composers from China and abroad, some by 20th century masters and iconic works by Gustav Mahler. The list includes not only Mahler, Antonin Dvořák, Olivier Messiaen and George Benjamin, but composers born in the last quarter of the last century—Huang Ruo, Wang Ying, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Sasha Scott, Faykueen Wang, Shen Yiwen and Zhenyan Li, and among the performers for the world premiere works are young instrumentalists and singers. This initiative exemplifies the BMF’s hopes for the future, its continuing collaboration with important international organizations and commitment to promote new works, performers, composers to audiences around the world. Composers of different ages not only pen musical works that challenge their own times, but they also engage in dialogue with Mahler on such essential topics as childhood, nature and life.
Mahler was a man who always had a youthful spirit. For his Das Knaben Wunderhorn, he set the folk poem Der Himmel hängt voll Geigen to music. Mahler gives the title of this song as Das himmlische Leben, utilizing the harp and bells to create a heavenly scenario of a child’s imagination. He performed this work often in his early years, and later incorporated it as the finale of his Fourth Symphony. Interestingly, although the song
pertains to heaven, the lyrics are rooted in the earth: angels bake bread and St. Peter fishes in a pond… Apart from its childlike innocence and reverie, it also exemplifies Mahler’s unique brand of humor. A number of reduced orchestral arrangements have been made in the past century of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, and this concert features John Warner’s own version. The program also includes BMF new commissions by two young female composers hailing from China and England respectively—Zhenyan Li and Sasha Scott—each with a work associated with childhood and highlighting the young countertenor Andy Liu. New generation British conductor, arranger and Mahler expert John Warner leads the Mahler Festival Foundation Orchestra, and along with soprano Gabriella Noble, they bring us back to some sweet memories of childhood.

Track:
Zhenyan Li: ORISONS (New Commission)
Sasha Scott: Utopia Twists (New commission)
—intermission—
Gustav Mahler (arr. John Warner): Symphony No. 4, arranged for chamber orchestra

Artist/Group:
Andy Shen Liu, countertenor
Gabriella Noble, soprano
Mahler Foundation Festival Orchestra
John Warner, conductor
Emma Haring, librettist
Zhenyan Li, Sasha Scott, composers
Gustav Mahler, composers