with Bristol University Loudspeaker Orchestra

Death and Transfiguration

The Bristol University Symphony Orchestra draws the best players from all six Faculties of the University. For our first concert of 2018, we recognise two major centenaries: the end of the First World War; and the step-change towards universal suffrage in the UK.

Jonathan Harvey’s classic electroacoustic work – ‘I mourn the Dead, I call the Living’ – announces our concert with chiming bells and voices. The Bartók Divertimento was written in August 1939, when the world was sliding back into war. We present the UK première of a luminous work by Augusta Read Thomas, one of America’s most prominent living composers. Our programme culminates in Strauss’s tone poem, a journey from darkness to true transcendence.

Jonathan Harvey, Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco

Bartok, Divertimento for Strings

Augusta Read Thomas, Radiant Circles

Strauss, Death and Transfiguration

Tickets: balcony £15/£10 concs; stalls £11/£8 concs/£3 UoB students (with presentation of student ID card) available from shop.bris.ac.uk and on the evening.