Paul Patterson 40th Birthday Concert

Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London

Tuesday, 10 February 1987, 7.45pm

Aquarius

President: Sir Michael Tippett
Artistic Director: Nicholas Cleobury
Clare Southworth (flute)
Nicholas Daniel (oboe)
Roger Heaton (clarinet)
Peter Williams (bassoon)
Peter Ash (horn)
Jonathan Impett (trumpet)
Susan Addison (trombone)
Julius Drake (piano)
David Hockings (percussion)
Margaret Faultless (violin)
Brian Brooks (violin)
Rebecca Hirsch (viola)
Andrew Fuller (’cello)
Paul Spiers (double bass)

Nicholas Cleobury (conductor)

London Chorale (David Coleman – conductor)

Paul Patterson
Duologue
At the Still Point
of the Turning World
Missa Brevis
Rebecca
Intersections
Cracowian Counterpoints
Spare Parts

Paul Patterson

Paul Patterson is established among Britain’s leading composers, with a reputation for works displaying a colourful and vivid imagination. He was born in Chesterfield in 1947 and studied trombone and composition at the Royal Academy of Music from 1964 to 1968. In 1971 he was appointed a Manson Fellow at the Academy, and his association has continued to this day as Head of Contemporary Music Studies and Composition.

He has worked with a number of prominent composers, including Richard Rodney Bennett, and, during the seventies, contact with Penderecki, Lutoslawski and other composers of the Polish School was evident in the adoption of their textural sound world and notation. One of the pieces programmed for the Queen Elizabeth Hall, commissioned by the London Sinfonietta, ‘Cracowian Counterpoints’ evidences the fruits of this association.

A change in his style in the late seventies may be charted through works like At the Still Point of the Turning World; written for the Nash Ensemble in 1980, which bears a mixture of unconventional and traditional notations. His Missa Brevis; written for the 1985 Greenwich Festival, bears further signs of his development.

His work with young people, as ‘Composer-in-Residence’ at King’s School, Canterbury, and at Bedford, has provided him with the opportunity to communicate directly with his audiences, both at the school and local community level. His earliest published work, Rebecca, is just one example of the many works he has written for young performers, and his ability as a communicator has done much to break down the barriers that many feel towards new music.

Another preoccupation is Patterson’s belief that a composer should be fully conversant with the solo instrument or ensemble for which he is writing. Among the many works he has contributed to the repertoire of specific instruments is ‘Duologue’ for oboe and piano.

Patterson has also gained recognition as a composer of large-scale choral works. His ‘Mass of the Sea’ has received many performances since its premiere at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester in 1983. He was commissioned to write a ‘Stabat Mater’ to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Huddersfield Choral Society in 1986, and further commissions for the coming years include another major choral work for the Three Choirs in Hereford in 1988.

Patterson enjoys a close association with a number of groups who specialise in performing contemporary works, including Aquarius and The London Chorale.

Aquarius

Aquarius is an ensemble of brilliant young musicians, formed in 1983 by the conductor Nicholas Cleobury and Josephine Richardson. Their debut concerts in the Queen Elizabeth Hall received high critical acclaim.

All soloists in their own right, they combine to perform concerts of mainstream and contemporary music. Aquarius enjoys a close relationship with many leading living composers including Sir Michael Tippett and Paul Patterson, and has commissioned several new works and given many first performances.

Aquarius has appeared at many leading British festivals, including Belfast Sonorities, Cheltenham, City of London, Newbury, St Albans and Fishguard. They have also done a number of recordings for BBC Radio and Television.

Aquarius has an imaginative approach to programming, often combining new works with pieces from the more established repertoire, on other occasions focussing on a chosen country. They give regular music theatre performances, working with such leading actors and speakers as Eleanor Bron, Prunella Scales, Brian Kay, Richard Pasco, Richard Stilgoe and Timothy West.

Future plans include further projects in music theatre and ;l development of an extensive programme of educational activities.

Nicholas Cleobury

Nicholas Cleobury is now established as one of Britain’s leading and most versatile conductors. He works regularly with almost all the BBC, London and regional orchestras and has appeared at nearly all the leading British festivals. His fast-growing reputatIon has taken him to Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Rumania and Sweden.

Nicholas Cleobury is the Principal Opera Conductor at the Royal Academy of Music, and has conducted for many leading British opera companies and for Flanders Opera.

As well as possessing a specialist knowledge of Baroque, he is a brilliant exponent of contemporary music. He has conducted the first concert and/or broadcast performances of works by many British composers, and has a partIcularly close relationship with many composers, notably John Buller, Peter Maxwell Davies, Steve Martland, Paul Patterson, Giles Swayne and Sir Michael Tippett.

His commitment to contemporary music led to the founding of Aquarius in 1983.

The London Chorale

The London Chorale is one of the United Kingdom’s most musically distinguished and enterprising choral groups, with an established reputation for performances of vitality and consistently high standards.

The Chorale performs regularly in the major London venues with professional soloists and many of the leading orchestras. The choir’s repertoire spans music from the 16th to the 20th century, with a special commitment to modern and contemporary music. They have given ‘World’ and ‘London’ premieres of music by Leonard Bernstein, Zoltan Kodaly, Paul Patterson, lain Hamilton and many others. In many cases these works were their own special commissions.

The Chorale gives regular performances abroad, often at festivals where they have won ilUmerous prizes. During a recent tour of the USA they performed at Trinity Church, Wall Street, and The United Nations. Future trips are planned to Switzerland, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The Chorale’s Musical Director and Conductor, David Coleman, has already established an international reputation.

David Coleman

David Coleman trained at the Royal Academy of Music, and at Dartington College of Arts. He studied with the composer Carl Orff at the Orff Institute, Salzburg and became a member of the International Conductors’ Course at the Mozarteum. Subsequently he studied at the London Opera Centre, where he worked as a conductor and repetiteur.

In 1975 David Coleman joined the London Festival Ballet where he is now Principal Guest Conductor. He has been a frequent guest conductor at the annual Nureyev Festival at the London Coliseum, and with the company of’Nureyev and Friends’ worldwide. He has also been a Guest Conductor at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, La Scala, Milan, and at the music festivals of Macerata and Tivoli.

David Coleman appears regularly with the major British orchestras, and is a frequent conductor of Opera Gala nights in London. In 1985 he made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

He has written music for both the theatre and television and was Musical Director of the ITV fIlm ‘Giselle’ with Rudolph Nureyev and Lynn Seymour. He has also been the subject of an ITV documentary: ‘David Coleman – Conductor and Composer: