New Musical Worlds with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and guests

Fully booked

The BBC Symphony Orchestra explores the wild new worlds of Martin Smolka, Oliver Leith and Rebecca Saunders.

Turn your ears inside out, as the BBC Symphony Orchestra celebrates three composers who find music in the impossible. Martin Smolka - Czech music’s self-proclaimed “hooligan” - takes a piano concerto and knocks it backwards. Silence speaks louder than sound, in Rebecca Saunders’s haunting Traces. Of Oliver Leith's Pearly, goldy, woody, bloody, or, Abundance, the composer says ‘I pictured an orchestra wheeled out for a party on a lawn in front of the portico of a large house – playing this piece surrounded by burbling guests and fountains.’

As the 21st century lurches into its second quarter, these, it seems, are the sounds that reveal our world: three sonic tales for our times, by turns irreverent, intelligent and beautiful beyond words. Bit of a shocker? Or exactly what you’d expect from the BBC Symphony Orchestra - conducted today by Jack Sheen, and starring pianist Joseph Havlat in Smolka’s glittering anti-concerto?

Programme:
Martin Smolka Presto e lento*
Rebecca Saunders Traces
Oliver Leith Pearly, goldy, woody, bloody, or, Abundance

Jack Sheen conductor
Joseph Havlat piano*
BBC Symphony Orchestra

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Jack Sheen

How to be in the audience

Step 1: Apply for tickets

Tickets for this show are being allocated on a first-come first-served basis, so when we receive your ticket request your details are added to the list of applicants. Tickets are usually dispatched from approximately three weeks ahead of the recording date.

Step 2: Receive a message

All eligible requests are allocated tickets in the order they are received, up to the maximum number of available tickets. If successful, we notify you by text message and send your e-ticket(s) to your email address. If unsuccessful you will be kept on the waiting list in case anyone cancels their tickets.

Step 3: Bring your tickets and ID

We do our best to get the numbers right, but unfortunately we occasionally have to disappoint people. Remember that every guest must bring original approved photo ID.

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