Music Matters - 20/09/2008

King’s Place Tom visits London’s newest concert hall, Kings Place, the brain child of Peter Millican, set to host chamber music, jazz, and world music events from the start of October. Peter’s plan is an ambitious one: to finance the year-round artistic programme with the rents from the Guardian and other corporate clients renting space at the complex. But can he make King’s Place fly without cash from the Arts Council? And what will the impact be on London’s flagship chamber music venue, the Wigmore Hall? Tom talks to John Gilhooly of the Wigmore Hall, and to two wise men of British culture: John Tusa, former Chief Executive of the Barbican and now Chairman of the University of the Arts, and Anthony Sargent, General Director at the Sage in Gateshead. www.kingsplace.co.uk Mauricio Kagel Composer Mauricio Kagel died on Thursday, at the age of 76. Growing up in Argentina, Kagel studied with Borges before moving to Cologne in 1957, and throwing himself into the musical avant-garde. But Kagel remained a literary composer, in the sense that he questioned all of the received wisdoms of the musical world. He staged pieces like Match, for two cellists and a percussionist who referees their musical tug-of-war, to a recent theatre work that faked a kidnapping in a concert hall. Tom remembers this master of the avant-garde with composer and ex-Kagel pupil Gerald Barry, and Kagel expert Björn Heile. Bjorn Heile’s Mauricio Kagel website http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/bh25/kagel.htm La Calisto Francesco Cavalli’s 17th century tale of conflict between gods and mortals, La Calisto, opens at the Royal Opera House on Tuesday. This is the first time that any of Cavalli’s dozens of operas have made it to the stage at Covent Garden. Tom explores why it has taken so long to showcase the work of a composer who made Venetian opera his own in the wake of Monteverdi’s advances in the mid 17th century, and wrote among the first public (as opposed to princely) operatic entertainments. Tom went along to rehearsals at the Royal Opera House and spoke to director David Alden, conductor Ivor Bolton, and Soprano Sally Matthews. La Calisto is at the Royal Opera House September 23rd – October 10th http://www.roh.org.uk/whatson/production.aspx?pid=6573 You can hear La Calisto on Opera on 3 on Saturday October 25th http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/operaon3/ Anthony Marwood There is something of a musical revolution going on in Ireland at the moment and one of those at the forefront is violinist Anthony Marwood, who conducts the Irish Chamber Orchestra at the Wigmore Hall on Tuesday. Marwood’s career as chamber musician and soloist – he performs with the Florestan Trio and premiered Thomas Adès’s Violin Concerto – sees him navigate the extremes of the violin’s repertoire. But Marwood’s skills extend beyond music. He has combined his acting and dancing skills with his violin-playing in recent years, notably in a production of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, where he played the Soldier – and the violin part. Tom meets him to ask how all this musical multi-tasking is connected. Don’t miss Music Matters special Irish edition on October 11th when Tom will be travelling across Ireland to get a sense of what has shaped Irish musical life. Anthony Marwood directs the Irish Chamber Orchestra at the Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 23rd September http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/productions/irish-chamber-orchestra-21697