• Home
• News & Reviews
• Nico Muhly and Britten Sinfonia a hit with the critics.

Nico Muhly and Britten Sinfonia a hit with the critics.

Nico Muhly's residency with Britten Sinfonia is well underway and all involved seem to be enjoying the experience, read what people have been saying...

Just before the residency started Charlotte Higgins of The Guardian wrote about our varied work with young composers, folk musicians, summer festivals, classical repertoire and no conductor. You can read the full article here.

Then Nico arrived. The first part of his residency was a world première tour of his new work, Motion, which was co-commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and Wigmore Hall. The piece was performed amongst a programme, devised by Nico, of Orlando Gibbons arrangements, Howells and Copland.

Ivan Hewitt of The Telegraph wrote:
"Muhly's music has an urban, street-wise energy, much influenced by Steve Reich's pattering minimalism. But he softens the hard edges of minimalism with other influences, some of which are decidedly unhip. One of them is the Jacobean composer Orlando Gibbons, whose gravely beautiful, immaculately crafted counterpoint seemed old-fashioned even in his own lifetime."

Fiona Maddocks of  The Observer wrote:
”…he began with Gibbons but made a punchy urban anthem for string quartet, piano and clarinet out of glittering contrapuntal fragments.”

Read the full articles here.

Sunday 24 January brought a Britten Sinfonia's second concert of the weekend at the Roundhouse, London. This was a programme of Nico's work along side that of his musical mentors, Philip Glass and Steve Reich and a collaboration with American folk singer Sam Amidon.

Andrew Clements of the Guardian wrote:
”There are echoes of early Reich and of other American experimentalists like Robert Ashley, but the result was original and utterly personal.”

Michael White wrote in The Telegraph music blog:
”I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like quite like this music, and I was mesmerized by it.”

Mapsadaisical blog wrote:
”Britten Sinfonia’s performances of Nico Muhly’s own pieces were superb.”

You can read the full articels here.

A significant part of Nico's residency is touring with the orchestra to present the programme 'Britten in America'. This a première tour of Nico's work for violin, tenor and strings, Impossible Things, travelling to 13 concert halls across the Netherlands and UK in just over 2 weeks. The tour reaches the UK on Friday 5 February in Cambridge and moves onto Bradford on Avon, Dartington, London, Cockermouth, Southampton and Norwich.

You can read an interview with Mark Padmore about the tour here.