London Symphony Orchestra

Soundhub Showcase Concert, Friday 22 June, LSO St Luke's Selected excerpts from Planes by Elo Masing - please listen with headphones as some of the sounds are extremely quiet. Jean Lee choreographer/dancer Toki Quartet Aki Sawa violin Midori Komachi violin Steve Doman viola Amy Jolly cello Planes is not an ordinary dance piece. Music and dance are far too closely integrated in this work to regard it as yet another dance performance; rather, it could be seen as a piece of chamber music for string quartet and dancer. Planes challenges the conventions of music and dance collaborations in quite unprecedented ways by establishing a profound and tangible interrelation between movement and sound production. Music and choreography are integrated from a grass-root level and built up together from the very beginning. A large part in this is played by the unconventional notation the piece is written in, devised by the composer to be able to convey the movement-based sonic language that connects closely with the unique movement material of choreographer Jean Lee and enables her to work with the score without necessarily hearing the music played by the performers.

Rehearsal for Soundhub Sharing, Saturday 16th June, LSO St Luke's David Worswick: violin Neil Georgeson: piano

Soundhub Showcase Concert, Friday 22 June, LSO St Luke's Paul Silverthorne viola Block by Adam de la Cour Block came about through a mix of diverse influences over a two week period. The initial starting point was Freud's quote concerning the death drive (Todestrieb): "the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead organic life back into the inanimate state" ...which was then mixed in with some experiments with the octatonic scale; general writing by ear; and many moments of writer's block. Hora Spoitorilor by Emma-Ruth Richards Hora Spoitorilor explores one variation on the Romanian folk song of the same name that much of the thematic material for my new chamber opera is built on; the opera is a rescue story of one of the thousands of young Romanian girls that are sex trafficked into Britain every year. This image is from Vanessa Beecroft's sculptural performance in Spasimo Palermo, which Nic, the librettist (http://www.nicchalmers.co.uk) was greatly inspired by. Rite by Richard Bullen 'The viola is seemingly just a big violin but tuned a fifth lower. In reality the two instruments are worlds apart. They both have three strings in common, the A, D and G string. The high E-string lends the violin a powerful luminosity and metallic penetrating tone which is missing in the viola. The violin leads; the viola remains in the shade. In return the low C-string gives the viola a unique acerbity, compact, somewhat hoarse, with the aftertaste of wood, earth and tannic acid.' Gyorgy Ligeti, preface to Viola Sonata (1994) Part reflection on Ligeti's comment, part exploration of the ceremonial aspects of musical performance, Rite was written at the request of the talented young violist Diana Mathews who gave the first performance at St John the Bapist Church, Wimbledon in February 2012. It is designed to be performed in a large, resonant space.

Soundhub Showcase Concert, Friday 22 June, LSO St Luke's David Worswick violin Chaconne for solo violin was commissioned by the violinist David Worswick. While the piece strictly follows a chord progression throughout, it is not stated in a bare form until the very end of the piece. As a result, the listener becomes gradually aware of the progression through consistent exposure to the material. The music begins wild and unfocused, leaping around the instrument with very aggressive figurations contrasted by short, gentle fragments played in a much slower tempo. As the piece progresses, the wild music is lassoed, without losing intensity, into a nearly consistent triple time and tighter phrases bringing a sense of greater control and directed energy. In a sense, this work is a tribute to J.S. Bach, as wonderful exponent of expressivity within a strict form. Chaconne is dedicated to David Worswick for his tireless championship of new music.

Soundhub Showcase Concert, Friday 22 June, LSO St Luke's Ayanna Witter-Johnson vocals & cello "In this performance of A Single Sun, you will hear both a work in progress and a culmination of my experience on the LSO Soundhub Pilot Scheme. I have been exploring the role that recording plays in my music and how I can use it to extend in particular the range of the cello to create a variety of sonic landscapes in my music. All the sounds in the piece, besides the voice have been generated by the cello." You had a chance and you gave it away, now you're searching for somebody new to blame. When will you learn that the choices you make, will determine the route that you want to take? I don't know how to get through to you when you're floating on a cloud of illusions that don't come true. There's a bond that's beyond what we think we control so I'll patiently wait for you. Come back to earth babe and maybe something can really happen, I know that we can find time to solve this, my heart is open and we're revolving around a single sun. I hear you calling but you're out of sight, I'm not blind but your fears are obscuring the light. It's a strange game to play when you know that I'm yours, you say that you want me then push me away. I don't know how to get close to you when you're drifting on a cloud of confusion that just ain't true. There's a bond that's beyond what we think we control but my patience is almost through. Come back to earth babe and maybe something can really happen, I know that we can find time to solve this, my heart is open and we're revolving around a single sun.

Soundhub Showcase Concert, Friday 22 June 2012, LSO St Luke's Kimon Parry Eb clarinet Elaine Ruby Bb clarinet George Sleightholme bass clarinet 'The evening was intimate, infinite. The road descended and forked among the now confused meadows. A high-pitched, almost syllabic music approached and receded in the shifting of the wind, dimmed by leaves and distance.... I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars...' The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges

Soundhub Showcase Concert, Friday 22 June 2012, LSO St Luke's Adam de la Cour - vocals / guitar Neil Luck - vocals Federico Reuben - electronics Matthew Lee Knowles - piano / librettist Tom Jackson - bass clarinet Fiona Bevan - vocals Billy Strachan - drums Shadow Prophets is a collaborative opera composed by squib-box, and featuring a libretto by Matthew Lee Knowles. The work was originally commissioned by Associazione Culturale Heuristic for the Miniere Sonore Festival 2011. '...In a galaxy far, far away eastern dictators, western playboys and middle-class composers conflate in an alarming ejaculation of current affairs, hardcore modernism, slapstick, free jazz, and bad stand-up comedy. Expect anything...'

Soundhub Showcase Concert, Friday 22 June 2012, LSO St Luke's Elo Masing violin Dragos Margineanu electric guitar The score for this work in progress is written onto a digital camera flash unit. This is flashed into the eyes of the performers who then have approximately six minutes until the image on their retina fades beyond recognition. With their eyes shut, they respond to diverse changes in clarity, colour and stability. The work seeks to bring the score inside the human body; and to create a pointedly fugitive score which individual players see once only, fleetingly and within the parameters of their ocular idiosyncrasies. (It transpires that if the performer looks at a blank sheet of paper, the image appears there as equally well-defi ned as inside their head.) My long-term plan is to realise an opera, The Death of Kodak, using multiple flash units and a large ensemble to portray the symptomatic dissolution of this pivotal modernist corporation. Composing can happen anywhere and does not depend on the location you are in at a certain moment. More important than the places you travel to are the people you meet. In this sense, I greatly enjoyed my studies in New York and London because of the opportunities it gave me to meet musicians, teachers and friends.

Soundhub Showcase Concert, Friday 22 June 2012, LSO St Luke's David Worswick violin Paul Silverthorne viola Ayanna Witter-Johnson cello Toki Quartet [Aki Sawa violin | Midori Komachi violin | Steve Doman viola | Amy Jolly cello] Unknown Baobabs is part of a series of pieces originally inspired by a structural device I initially encountered in Anthony Braxton's Composition 23C. Other recorded pieces in the series include Baobabs (Alexander Hawkins Ensemble, no now is so, FMR Records, 2009; The Convergence Quartet, Song/Dance, Clean Feed, 2010); A Star Explodes 10,00 Years Ago, Seen By Chinese Astronomers (Alexander Hawkins Ensemble, All There, Ever Out, Babel, 2012); and Scarlet Ibis, Then Constellation, a trumpet concerto written for Wadada Leo Smith. All the players have the exact same melodic line, but have discretion as to the rate at which they move through the materials (amongst other things), and need make no particular effort to play in phase with anyone else. As a result, the line generates its own harmony as it proceeds. It also has no real sense of pulse, although hopefully retains a definite sense of architecture and direction. This composition was written whilst I was preparing for a concert with master saxophonist Marshall Allen, most famous for his work in Sun Ra's Arkestra; one particular cell in the melody here recalls a corner from Ra's composition Lights on a Satellite.

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Aaron Holloway-Nahum, Emma-Ruth Richards, Toby Young and Ed McKeon, composers currently on the LSO's Soundhub scheme, discuss the business of composing. Find out more about LSO Soundhub here http://lso.co.uk/page/3603/Soundhub

LSO Guest Principal Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas describes his relationship with Mahler, and the companion pieces that he will be conducting with Symphonies 1, 4 & 5 on 27 & 31 May and 3 June 2012 at the Barbican: http://lso.co.uk/whatson

Animateur Rachel Leach leads an ensemble of LSO players through the first movement of Beethoven's Septet in Eb, Opus 20 - one of the set works on the Edexcel A & AS Level syllabus. Specially recorded by LSO Discovery, this seminar is especially relevant to those sitting their exam in May 2012. Violin: Liz Pigram Viola: Gillianne Haddow Cello: Rebecca Gilliver Double Bass: Rupert Ring Horn: Jonathan Lipton Bassoon: Adam Mackenzie Clarinet: James Burke

These Londoners are on the Rite track. Be part of it. Saturday 12 May 2012, 6.30pm Trafalgar Square, London, UK http://lso.co.uk/openair

LSO audience member Vida Milavanovic tells us about her long relationship with the LSO and what it means to her. If you'd like to Share, Comment and Be Part of It, find us on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest, YouTube and Foursquare as well as by coming to see us at the Barbican in London and on tour around the world: http://lso.co.uk/201213season A film by Tommy Pearson at Red Ted Productions: http://www.redtedproductions.com

We asked a selection of members of the LSO's audience from around the world and players from the Orchestra to tell us about their experiences of the LSO - here's what they said! If you'd like to Share, Comment and Be Part of It, find us on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest, YouTube and Foursquare as well as by coming to see us at the Barbican in London and on tour around the world: http://lso.co.uk/201213season A film by Tommy Pearson at Red Ted Productions: http://www.redtedproductions.com