David Sawer News
British composer
- opera
- United Kingdom
- composer, music teacher
Last update
2024-03-29
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2022-03-04 09:47:24
Urban dystopia: Guildhall School's double bill of Judith Weir's Miss Fortune and Menotti's The Telephone
[…] cast and we caught the performance on Wednesday 2 March 2022 with Ellie Neate and Jack Holton in The Telephone, and Jacob Harrison, Laura Fleur, Cleo Lee McGowan, Kieron-Connor Valentine, Innocent Masuku, Amy Holyland, and Jonathan Eyers in Miss Fortune Miss Fortune is based on a Sicilian folk tale, and Weir's own libretto abstracts the story and creates a sort of moral fable that rather reminded me of Georg Kaiser's From Morning to Midnight and David Sawer's brave attempt to turn it into an opera in 2001 at English National Opera. Again we have a protagonist, Tina, who goes through a series of scenes peopled more by archetypes, yet stalked by Fate. But Weir's ending turns things on its head. And Weir takes her characters seriously, the work lacks the mordant wit and sarcasm of German Expressionism, there is a warmth to her writing for all the characters, we feel sorry […]
2020-12-01 08:30:28
A bright spot in 2021: Garsington Opera's plans for its celebration of 10 years at Wormsley
[…] tenor Jack Swanson (making his role debut) and Robert Murray sharing the title role with Andrea Carroll, Katie Bray and Jacques Imbrailo. Michael Boyd's 2016 production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin [see my review] is returning with Jonathan McGovern [whom we last saw as Andrei in WNO's terrific production of Prokofiev's War and Peace, see my review] in the title role with Moldovan soprano Natalia Tanasii as Tatyana and Sam Furness [whom we saw in David Sawer's The Skating Rink at the 2018 festival, see my review] as Lensky. Douglas Boyd conducts. The above three operas will be using the Philharmonia Orchestra, but the English Concert will be in the pit for a new production of Handel's Amadigi. Written in 1715, it was the fifth opera that Handel wrote for London. It has some superb music and I have seen some very fine stage productions of the opera, but it is […]
2020-10-24 09:16:19
[…] that we still only really covered aspects of his musical career. Each mention of a work or a composer brought out other layers, and in one of his subsequent emails to me he says 'One might overview my work as “Everything via Association”' Vic Hoyland on disc Vic Hoyland: Vixen and In Transit - BBC Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins - NMC, available from Amazon. Vic Hoyland: The Other Side of the Air, David Sawer: The Melancholy of Departure - Rolf Hind (piano) - NMV, available from Amazon Elsewhere on this blog Welcome to the high energy world of Irish composer Ed Bennett: Psychedelia from NMC - CD review From the whole earth dancing to a day in hell: chamber music by Cheryl Frances-Hoad - CD review The case against Wagner - David Faiman's Meyerbeer: The deliberately forgotten composer - […]
2020-10-18 07:14:44
Classical-music aficionado, Tony Cooper, looks in on the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s special anniversary year
[…] Sohal: The Wanderer (1982)*Mark-Anthony Turnage: Night Dances (1983)Anthony Payne: The Spirit's Harvest (1985)*Harrison Birtwistle: Earth Dances (1986)*Andrzej Panufnik: Symphony No. 9 (1987)John Tavener: The Protecting Veil (1989)*Poul Ruders: Symphony No. 1 (1990)*Witold Lutosławski: Chantefleurs et chantefables (1991)Colin Matthews: Broken Symmetry (1992)*Louis Andriessen: De snelheid (revised version) (1993)Mark-Anthony Turnage: Your Rockaby (1994)*Judith Weir: Moon and Star (1995)*Kaija Saariaho: Graal théâtre (1995)Thea Musgrave: Phoenix Rising (1998)*Mark-Anthony Turnage: Fractured Lines*; Another Set To* (2000)Sally Beamish: Knotgrass Elegy (2001)*David Sawer: Piano Concerto (2002)*Magnus Lindberg: Concerto for Orchestra (2003)*Zhou Long: The Immortal (2004)*Detlev Glanert: Theatrum bestiarum (2005)*Kalevi Aho: Clarinet Concerto (2006)*John Adams: Doctor Atomic Symphony (2007)*Anna Meredith: Froms (2008)*Huw Watkins: Violin Cocnerto (2010)*Helen Grime: Night Songs (2012)*Raymond Yiu: The London Citizen Exceedingly Injured (2013)Charlotte Seither: Language of Leaving (2013)*John Tavener: Gnosis (2014)*Eleanor Alberga: Arise, Athena (2015)*Lotta Wennäkoski: Flounce (2017)*Roxanna Panufnik: Songs of Darkness, Dreams of Light (2018)*Dimitrios Skyllas: Kyrie eleison (2020)*January Composer Weekends1985 Karlheinz Stockhausen […]
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