The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s new 2020/21 programme has just been announced, which is the final season with Vasily Petrenko at the helm as Chief Conductor, including a few exciting performances of Grace’s newly commissioned works such as the rescheduled premiere of ‘Mahler’s Letters’, ‘In Her Own Valley’ and a performance of ‘The Imagined Forest.’
‘Mahler’s Letters’ - December 3rd 2020
This rescheduled premiere of ‘Mahler’s Letters’ will take place on December 3rd alongside the conclusion of Petrenko’s Mahler series with a performance of his breathtaking 9th symphony. ‘Mahler’s Letters’ is a large, extended work for choir inspired by the letters of the composer, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). Mahler’s letters are strikingly poetic and revealing and prolific but have never been published as a uniform edition to call upon. The work is a setting of four poems written by Grace for this work, which act as fictitious letters constructed from and inspired by the ideas, thoughts and language in Mahler’s correspondence. The poems deal with significant themes in art and particularly pertinent topics within Mahler’s music, life and his letters themselves. The poems that make up the four movements of ‘Mahler’s Letters’ are each addressed to a nameless addressee, ‘Dear You’, as they utilise a myriad of the letters that Mahler wrote to many different recipients including his wife, Alma, as well as his friends, colleagues, and critics. ‘Mahler’s Letters’ is, therefore, a reflective choral work concerned with some of the universal aspects of art and life itself; Nature, Love, Music, and, alongside religion, Death, which is a fitting accompaniment to his 9th Symphony.
‘In Her Own Valley’ - TBC
’In Her Own Valley' (2019), originally scheduled to be premiered by Liverpool Philharmonic’s combined youth choirs in July 2020 but set to be rescheduled in the new season, is a cantata in five movements for combined youth and children’s choirs. The work is inspired by the life and principles of Hannah Greg (née Lightbody) (1766 – 1834), a female philanthropist and activist based in Liverpool and Manchester during the industrial revolution. Hannah, born into a wealthy, mercantile, middle-class family, was progressive, interested in the politics of her day and determined to make positive reformations. The piece follows the lives of young factory children and workers who have often previously laboured at the docks. The arrival of Hannah and her husband, Samuel Greg, brought great hope as their innovative approach to labour relations, but to what cost is the secret to their industrial success? Hannah’s legacy made an immense difference and provided hope for future reform both in her own valley, in Liverpool and beyond.
‘The Imagined Forest’ - July 10th 2021
The very final concert of Petrenko’s 15 seasons as Chief Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra titled ‘Dream Team’, is a programme to celebrate the future as well as the past including Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.3 with Simon Trpčeski, Elgar’s ‘In The South’ and Respighi’s' ‘Feste Romane’, but the concert is opened by a performance of ‘The Imagined Forest’ by Grace-Evangeline Mason, further information to be announced.
