City Pierrot Ensemble: The Axe Manual

The City Pierrot Ensemble presents their 2022 festival concert: a vivid programme contrasting early 20th century chamber music masterpieces by Ravel and Stravinsky with new works by Ian Pace and Marc Yeats, and a tribute to Sir Harrison Birtwistle, the influential and inspirational composer who died earlier this year, with a performance of his exuberant work for piano and percussion, The Axe Manual.

Please note, this event is free to attend, but seats are limited, so please do sign up to attend, via the 'register now' button above.

Programme:

• Maurice Ravel, Piano Trio (1914)
• Marc Yeats, falling from the centre of night (2022, WP)
• Ian Pace, Lancashire Rock (2022, WP)
• Harrison Birtwistle, The Axe Manual (2000)
• Igor Stravinsky, Suite from L’histoire du soldat (1919)

Performers:

• Anthony Friend - clarinet
• Madeleine Mitchell, Gordon Mackay - violins
• Bridget Carey - viola
• Joseph Spooner - cello
• Chris Brannick, Ethan Skuodas - percussion
• Olivia Jageurs - harp
• Ian Pace - piano

About the City Pierrot Ensemble

The City Pierrot Ensemble is built around an outstanding core of musicians working at the Department of Performing Arts at City, including some who played in the earlier ensembles, The Pierrot Players and The Fires of London. The ensemble gave its debut performance in 2017 with Schoenberg's epochal expressionist song cycle Pierrot Lunaire (with guest soloists Alwynne Pritchard and Adam de la Cour), alongside Michael Finnissy's theatrical work Mr Punch, and Roger Redgate's Pierrot on the Stage of Desire.

They are resident at the Department, where their subsequent performances have included explorations of the late chamber music of Debussy, Berg, Webern and Zemlinsky, overlooked works by French composers Jolivet, Schmitt and Milhaud, Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (in the rarely heard version for piano trio) and Simeon ten Holt's evening length minimalist work Canto Ostinato. Their 2021 festival concert at City featured Peter Maxwell Davies' music drama Eight Songs for a Mad King with baritone Benedict Nelson as soloist.