BCMG, Musical Pioneers. 26th April 2009
Musical Pioneers weekend gets the reviewers talking...
BCMG were thrilled with the critics response to the Musical Pioneers concert, conducted by Peter Wiegold on Sunday 26 April.
Not only did the concert draw the biggest audience of the 2008/09 season, including a group of 40 school pupils who travelled all the way from Chester, but The Birmingham Post, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian all seemed to have something good to say about the programme and performance. Continued here.
Proms, Brass Day: Albert Hall/Radio 3
Richard Morrison
The Times: August 07
It was a happening worthy of the zany sixties. At the front of the Albert Hall platform stood five Uzbek musicians, fabulous in gold robes, their terrifying 5ft-long karnays (trumpets with the decibel power of ships’ hooters) aimed menacingly at the audience. At the back of the arena, facing them like the thin red line of imperial days, were a dozen trumpeters from the Coldstream Guards, equally striking in bearskins and scarlet tunics. continued here
by Peter Bale
2-Aug-2007
Brass Day at the Proms - Prom 21
Royal Albert Hall, 28th July
“He is armoured without”
The second half commenced with a BBC commission, Peter Wiegold’s “He is armoured without”. Written especially for the brass day, and to exploit both the forces available and also the possibilities offered by the Albert Hall itself, the title is taken from the writings of Horace, the full quote reading: “He is armoured without, who is innocent within, let this be thy shield, thy wall of brass”. continued here
By Nick Kimberley
Evening Standard 30.07.07
Peter Wiegold's He is Armoured Without, ... with players in every nook and cranny it had an unruly magnificence. At first there was an eerie sense of music emerging from nothing but the piece quickly gathered momentum and drama, exemplified by the musical battle between the Coldstream Guards' Fanfare Trumpets at one end of the hall and the two-metre-long karnay horns of Uzbek musicians at the other.
By David Purser
Brass Herald Magazine 2007
One of the great things about improvising is that you’re not obliged to play anything you find difficult. You decide for yourself, you play to your strengths, so it’s all nice and easy. It didn’t feel quite like that in the middle of the arena at the Royal Albert Hall on the night of July 24th, when I found myself taking an almost entirely un-notated role in Peter Wiegold’s He is Armoured Without. The work was premièred towards the end of the wonderful brass day at the Proms this summer, and was commissioned by the BBC especially for the event. The title is taken from a poem by the Roman poet, Horace, and reads: continued here
Cologne Triannual Festival, 2007: Berio Accordo
by Annette Schroeder
Kölnische Rundschau 30.04.2007
The Triennale started: Impressions from the opening weekend of the Cologne sound marathon which was held inside the concert hall as well as in open-air concerts and covered a wide variety from big concerts to tasteful fringe concerts… continued here
Brief Encounter: A Snapshot of an Opera Wiegold
National Opera Studio
Apparently Peter Wiegold had long wanted to compose an opera based on David Lean and Noel Coward’s classic British cinematic weepie of 1945, based on Coward’s
1935 play, Still Life. Having met the librettist Dominic Power, Wiegold and he decided to work together, and then gained a commission from the National Opera Studio to work on a short version of the piece, under an hour long. The work was given six showings at the Studio, directed by the composer and featuring young artists currently studying on the course there.
The audience shared the workspace with the cast and orchestra; we were seated around two sides of the room, the orchestra sat opposite, and the cast used the space between; simple and effective. The result was impressive, with the scoring vivid and the words getting across. continued here
"Trumpets!", London Sinfonietta
THE INDEPENDENT
"Trumpets!, a day's celebration of this instrument, put together by the virtuoso
trumpet player John Wallace and culminating in one of the most delightful concerts
the Sinfonietta has surely ever given. continued here
"Invisible Cities" BCMG
THE TIMES
"NOT so often in life do you get Timothy West, Marco Polo, Kublai Khan and Monteverdi all together on stage, but this odd bedfellowship assembled with successful results for the launch of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group’s 2004-05 season. continued here
