CARTOON CAPERS AND LIMINAL LOOPS: JOHN ADAMS AT 80
Performers
- Eliza McCarthy
- piano
- Britten Sinfonia
Programme
- John Adams
- Shaker Loops (26')
Chamber Symphony (22') - Donnacha Dennehy
- Limina: Piano Concerto (UK premiere) (28')
Britten Sinfonia presents an evening of thrilling music by one of the world’s most deservedly popular composers, John Adams, who will turn 80 in 2027, and a composer Adams has championed, Donnacha Dennehy, winner of a 2026 Grammy award.
The Adams works are exhilarating in completely different ways – Shaker Loops with its combination of weightless minimalism and trembling euphoria and the Chamber Symphony in its enthralling mash-up of the most unlikely influences: Arnold Schoenberg’s avant garde 1906 work of the same name and the “hyperactive, insistently aggressive and acrobatic scores” of classic American cartoon music.
Dennehy’s concerto shares many of Adams’ influences, with looping and subtly interwoven rhythmic blocks, but its brilliance also lies in its focus on transitions and hypnotic in-between states.
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“an electric performance of John Adams’ Shaker Loops. This early masterpiece is one of the highlights of late 20th-century string orchestra repertoire. Britten Sinfonia really seemed to revel in the intricacies and athletic challenges. The result was aptly a picture of joy, youth and energy.”