Hear and Now - Manchester Portraits - Portrait of Brett Dean

A programme exploring the work of Australian composer Brett Dean, winner of the prestigious Grawemeyer award in 2009. Including the premiere of the orchestral suite from Dean's opera based on Peter Carey's novel Bliss, evoking an erotic hotel room encounter, a convulsive heart attack and a visit to Hell, incorporating samples of street noise, television adverts and all the hellish racket of modern life, before ending with a broad, dark elegy. And Dean - formerly a violist with the Berlin Philharmonic - gives a performance of his own Viola Concerto. Amphitheatre (UK premiere) (9:57) Viola Concerto (27:20) Moments of Bliss (UK premiere) (29:49) Brett Dean (viola) BBC Philharmonic James MacMillan (conductor) Recorded on 14 June 2007 at NBH Studio 7 in Manchester.