BBC Festival 18-20 January 2008
Judith Weir: Telling the Tale
October 2007
The BBC has announced that Cardiff's Distinguished Visiting Professor, Judith Weir, is being accorded the special honour of being the focus for its annual composer festival in 2008. Called Judith Weir: Telling the Tale, the festival will take place at the Barbican Centre in London, with further events at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, between Friday 18 and Sunday 20 January. All the BBC concerts will be broadcast live or recorded on Radio 3.
The programme of Judith Weir: Telling the Tale includes chamber recitals, orchestral concerts, films, conversations with the composer, and concert performances from Weir's operatic output from her 'mini-operas' to The Vanishing Bridegroom. The final concert includes the world premiere of her new work CONCRETE, subtitled 'a motet about London ... an imaginary excavation of the Barbican Centre, burrowing through 2,500 years of historical rubble'.
Previous festivals have honoured composers from Berg, Ives and Janacek to Messiaen and Lutoslawski. Recent festivals have seen a shift of emphasis to living composers (with the exception of Cage in 2004): Mark-Anthony Turnage (2003), James MacMillan (2005), Elliott Carter (2006) and Sofia Gubaidulina (2007). In 2008 Judith Weir will become the third British composer to be featured this century.
For further information and a schedule of events, please visit the BBC Symphony Orchestra website at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/orchestras/symphonyorchestra/performances/weir_home.shtml