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Topic: Oliver Knussen


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In the News (Wed 11 Nov 09)

  
  Oliver Knussen on composing a requiem for his former wife | | Guardian Unlimited Arts
This is just one of the distractions Knussen has to deal with in Suffolk to create his music of luminous detail and distilled, concentrated power.
Yet this private chaos belies Knussen's public status: as composer and conductor, he is as generous in the music he programmes as he is committed to creating a vibrant performance tradition for his own work.
The requiem could be a watershed piece for Knussen, in which this famously self-critical composer, who is notorious for not finishing commissions, learns to trust his instincts.
arts.guardian.co.uk /features/story/0,,1925548,00.html   (1276 words)

  
  Oliver Knussen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Oliver Knussen (born June 12, 1952) is a British composer and conductor.
Knussen composed a number of impactful, colourful and often playful works (mainly for musical ensemble or orchestra) during the 1970s that were widely admired for their ability to encompass a sense of fun and a high level of craftsmanship.
Never pretentious, Knussen seems to have been universally popular among fellow composers and performers, and led the famous London Sinfonietta though one of its most fruitful periods in the 1980s.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Oliver_Knussen   (151 words)

  
 Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra | Stuart Knussen
Knussen was a founding member of the Academy of St. Martin's-in-the-Field, and was Principal Bass with the London Symphony Orchestra for nineteen years, including five years as Chairman of its Board of Directors.
Oliver Knussen remembers how through the 1950s and 1960s the family was in regular contact both with Britten and with another hero of his father's, Leopold Stokowski.
Knussen's period with the LSO spanned the end of Pierre Monteux's conductorship, the brief reign of Istvan Kertesz and the first years of Andre Previn as principal conductor.
www.gvyo.org /stuart.html   (632 words)

  
 Pro Arte: Oliver Knussen   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Oliver Knussen (b.1952) grew up in a highly musical family; his father, Stuart Knussen, having been a leading double-bass player.
Knussen has arranged the four movements of his piece - two consisting of his orchestral treatment of Lloyd's canons and two of his own reworking of the material through a twentieth-century ear - into a kind of sandwich, in which the Renaissance material surrounds and enfolds the modern score.
Knussen reworks "Tris" into a tranquil nocturne (Orchestra 2) with interruptions from the noisy neighbors of Orchestra 1.
www.proarte.org /notes/knussen.htm   (829 words)

  
 Oliver Knussen - CompositionToday.com
Oliver Knussen is one of British music’s great originals, and a rare example of a contemporary composer who has succeeded in writing music that is at once thoroughly modern but also shamelessly enjoyable.
Born in 1952 into a musical family (his father, Stuart, was principal double bassist of the London Symphony Orchestra for many years), Knussen was something of a prodigy as both composer and performer, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of his first symphony at the age of just fifteen.
Following the completion of the two operas, Knussen returned to mainly instrumental formats in the 1990s, often writing for relatively modest forces and crafting works that were small in scale, but not in effect.
www.compositiontoday.com /articles/knussen.asp   (377 words)

  
 Knussen, Oliver Music Web Links   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Dooley O Knussen, Oliver Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated.
Knussen, Oliver To love another person is to see the face of God.
-- Dr. Strangelove Knussen, Oliver The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are.
www.searchmusicnetwork.com /Composition_Composers_K_Knussen,_Oliver.html   (1658 words)

  
 Classical Music :: The Classical Source :: Snapshots for Oliver Knussen :: Classical Music
The concert was recorded and broadcast by the BBC and the tribute-commissions are now released as a flourish to inaugurate the London Sinfonietta’s CD label, undoubtedly a long-overdue development of the Sinfonietta’s highly successful outreach programme which promises first recordings of many significant works from its repertoire.
Knussen’s own music is at once tantalisingly absent from proceedings yet at the same time omnipresent.
Knussen has said that he prefers to be bewitched for a few minutes than hypnotised for an hour.
www.classicalsource.com /db_control/db_cd_review.php?id=1964   (889 words)

  
 Program Notes   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Knussen survived the transition from boy-wonder to full-fledged adult composer unscathed.
Knussen describes this aesthetic as an attempt to revive “the sharply defined and carefully detailed orchestral miniature, which creates and explores an imaginary world in a matter of minutes.” He laments the passing of that genre, more or less coinciding with the disappearance of “the 78 r.p.m.
At the same time, Knussen is a consummate craftsman, a composer with a superb ear and a mind drawn to trace intricately worked-out relationships in his layering of textures and rhythms.
www.sfsymphony.org /templates/pgmnote.asp?nodeid=3497&callid=3258   (2666 words)

  
 Oliver Knussen - Chamber Works [TH]: Classical CD Reviews- July2002 MusicWeb(UK)   (Site not responding. Last check: )
In many cases, the performers here are the dedicatees, and with Knussen in charge of the project, including being producer, the whole disc has an unmistakable air of authority.
Knussen admits to the influence of Stravinsky, Copland and Webern in this piece, particularly in the integration of extreme contrasts and the expressive approach to very limited raw material — the theme is itself a variation on its first six notes.
It is rather, as Knussen tells us "a sequence of faded snapshots and reflections, by an unwilling grown-up, on things remembered from the book, and on what those things meant to him as a child … I allowed the music to take itself where it wanted to go".
www.musicweb-international.com /classrev/2002/July02/Knussen_works.htm   (879 words)

  
 HarrisonParrott :: Oliver Knussen, conductor | HarrisonParrott
Oliver Knussen’s music occupies a respected and regularly revisited place in concert and opera programmes worldwide.
Oliver Knussen is an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Knussen was cited by the selection committee of the award for "his uniquely focused, vibrantly varied music and his total embrace — as a profoundly influential composer, conductor and educator — of today's musical culture."
www.harrisonparrott.com /artists/Oliver_Knussen.asp   (273 words)

  
 Review
Although he did not specifically address the subject in his demurely witty remarks during the concert, Oliver Knussen’s program with the Philadelphia Orchestra was all about color.
Knussen’s own music also leans toward the brighter side of the orchestral palette, as befits music for a children’s opera.
Ironically, "Poem of Ecstasy," even with Knussen and the orchestra’s ardent reading, proved to be the least brilliant music of the evening, as compared to the more delicate, coloristically varied music of Mussorgsky/ Stokowski, Knussen and especially Takemitsu.
www.citypaper.net /articles/030900/mus.oliver1.shtml   (378 words)

  
 Buy Takemitsu, Toru: Toru Takemitsu: Quotation of Dream (20/21 series) - London Sinfonietta / Oliver Knussen   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Oliver Knussen, a contemporary British composer and a friend of Takemitsu, conducted the London Sinfonietta in these recordings.
The sound and the performances are first rate and Oliver Knussen must be congratulated on doing such a fine job in bringing these excellent pieces to life.
Knussen, who leads amazing performances here, has programmed the disc for a continuous listening experience, although the novice should probably listen only to a couple of pieces at one sitting.
classical.video-dvd.com.ru /C_33732/G_B00000I0L6/Toru-Takemitsu-Quotation-of-Dream-2021-series--London-Sinfonietta-Oliver-Knussen.html   (2182 words)

  
 New music seeks niche with classics
As part of its festival, the PSO welcomes one of the world's great advocates of modern music, the composer and conductor Oliver Knussen, who has more than 200 premieres to his credit.
Knussen has written (and as of press time is still finishing) a violin concerto to be premiered by Pinchas Zukerman.
Knussen's pessimism is buoyed here and there by pockets of good news, often a surprise.
www.post-gazette.com /ae/20020331newmusic0331fnp2.asp   (1042 words)

  
 Knussen conducts well, composes even better
Oliver Knussen the conductor made his San Francisco Symphony debut in Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday afternoon, but it was Oliver Knussen the composer who walked off with most of the laurels.
Knussen's music finally made its presence felt in San Francisco when Michael Tilson Thomas -- a longtime friend and champion -- conducted three of his works for a subscription program in May. Hearing "The Way to Castle Yonder" left one hungry for more.
Knussen began with the Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from "Peter Grimes," in a rendition that made up in atmosphere what it lacked in rhythmic tautness (the performance sounded one or two rehearsals away from completeness).
sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/05/DDGVJFJ0201.DTL&...   (617 words)

  
 Buy General: Knussen Conducts Knussen   (Site not responding. Last check: )
I think that this would be one of the 5 CDs I would want to take along with me. For those unaware of British conductor/composer Oliver Knussen's precocious beginnings--he conducted the London Symphony in his Symphony No. 1 at age 15.
While Carter's music can seem 'too much' for the ears to confront, Knussen's keen orchestration is so clear and lucid that in spite of the many lines going on, you can follow any and/or all at the same time.
Knussen's a great conductor, but I wish he'd conduct less and compose more.
classical.video-dvd.com.ru /C_572182/G_B000001GRY/Knussen-Conducts-Knussen.html   (704 words)

  
 Prom 13   (Site not responding. Last check: )
It is a constant source of amazement to me that there seems to be body of people who make a habit of arriving for a concert exactly five minutes after it starts.
Oliver Knussen is someone I usually think of as a late night Prom person.
Even a second hearing did not help endear it to me, but it was more worth hearing than the last work of the programme, Lindberg's memorial to Lutoslawski, which began well, ended well and even had a few moments in the middle which looked as if they might have gone somewhere, but didn't.
www.promenaders.freeserve.co.uk /1999/Prom9913.html   (508 words)

  
 Classical Net Review - Knussen - Horn Concerto, etc.
Knussen doesn't storm heaven, at least he hasn't lately, preferring the delights and satisfactions of exquisite craft.
Knussen defines organum as melismatic organum - that is, "plainchant as the foundation for rapid, ecstatic, dance-like melismata." In the Two Organa, we again find two different rhythmic planes: one slow, one fast.
Knussen writes: "These characteristically powerful but unusually short poems of Walt Whitman attracted me because they deal with grand natural phenomena on small canvases." Again, we see the idea of the power in the little.
www.classical.net /music/recs/reviews/d/dgg49572a.html   (1439 words)

  
 Oberlin College News & Features
Oliver Knussen Guest Conducts the Cleveland Orchestra in Finney Chapel Feb. 11
Oliver Knussen will conduct the Cleveland Orchestra in Finney Chapel Friday, Feb. 11, at 8 p.m.
The Times of London calls Knussen "a composer at the height of his power." When he celebrated his 50th birthday in 2002, he was feted with three retrospective concerts in London and special concerts in Cleveland and Amsterdam, confirming his position at the forefront of the international contemporary music scene.
www.oberlin.edu /news-info/05feb/artistrecital.html   (258 words)

  
 Tim Munro
Acclaimed conductor and composer Oliver Knussen is leading the workshops, which include ensemble rehearsals, discussion sessions with Carter and Knussen, and a performance conducted by Knussen of several small ensemble works by Carter in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, on Wednesday, April 24, at 7:00 p.m.
Munro, who is in the second and final year of his artist diploma course, earned a bachelor of music degree with first honors and a university medal at the University of Queensland (Australia) in 1999.
For more information about the Oliver Knussen Workshop: Music of Elliott Carter, contact Tina Cox in Carnegie Hall’s education department at 212-903-9740.
www.oberlin.edu /con/bkstage/200204/munro.html   (414 words)

  
 Biography of   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Since 1981 Oliver Knussen has been responsible for over 200 world and local premieres, and has made many award-winning recordings, most frequently with the London Sinfonietta.
In 1994 Oliver Knussen was invited to become an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was made a Commander of the British Empire in the June Birthday Honours.
In 1995 Oliver Knussen entered into an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon: an ambitious program of recordings incorporates a broad range of 20th-century repertoire, including his own compositions.
www.deutschegrammophon.com /artist/biography.htms?ART_ID=KNUOL   (216 words)

  
 Oliver Knussen
Oliver Knussen quotes from Boris Godunov in his children's opera Where the Wild Things Are.
You could be forgiven for thinking Oliver Knussen is Boris himself : a gentle Mussorgskian giant, he seems, at a casual glance, to embody many of the characteristics, not so much of the opera's bullish, precocious hero as of the shy, rumpled, peace-loving wild creatures themselves, stirring from their amiable slumber.
Knussen never talks himself up, but at not quite yet fifty (he celebrates his fiftieth next year) he surely belongs among the greats, with the likes of Henze, Birtwistle and his idol, Elliott Carter.
www.mvdaily.com /articles/2001/11/knussen1.htm   (268 words)

  
 Ojai Music Festival
Knussen's conducting duties for the two concerts he was to have led will be assumed by Grant Gershon and Brad Lubman.
In 2002, Oliver Knussen's fiftieth birthday was celebrated with three retrospective concerts in London and special concerts in Cleveland and Amsterdam confirming his position at the forefront of the international contemporary music scene.
Since 1994 Mr Knussen has recorded an acclaimed series of recordings of 20th century music for Deutsche Grammophon including music by Carter, Crawford-Seeger, Henze, Kagel, Lieberson, Lindberg, Matthews, Stravinsky, Takemitsu, Wuorinen, and his own operatic Double Bill "Higglety Pigglety Pop!" and "Where the Wild Things Are".
www.ojaifestival.org /festival/2005/bios/knussen.htm   (353 words)

  
 Bio for Oliver Knussen
Oliver Knussen's position at the forefront of the international contemporary music scene is firmly established.
In 1994 he was invited to become an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was made a C.B.E. in the June 1994 Birthday Honours.
Since 1994 Mr Knussen has recorded an acclaimed series of recordings of 20t` century music for Deutsche Grammophon including music by Carter, Crawford, Seeger, Henze, Kagel, Lindberg, Matthews, Stravinsky, Takemitsu, Wuorinen and, most recently, his own operatic Double Bill "Higglety Pigglety Pop!" and "Where the Wild Things Are".
www.pittsburghsymphony.org /pghsymph.nsf/bios/5581014F0A56328E85256A1E0055E8DD   (238 words)

  
 Oliver Knussen   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Oliver Knussen (born 1952) leapt to fame in the early 1980s with the Glyndebourne production of his spectacular opera ‘Where the Wild Things Are’; in a rare interview, this colourful composer tells Daniel Jaffé how writing for children changed his music
In person Knussen, formidable in build and girth as he is, comes across as shy and somehow vulnerable.
Knussen is particularly looking forward to recording the final full version of Higgledy Piggledy: “the circumstances I wrote it in made it very late [for its first performance] so it was done in various unfinished or temporary versions.
www.musicwrite.demon.co.uk /knussen.html   (1706 words)

  
 BBC - Classical Review - Mussorgsky: Symphonic Transcriptions by Stokowski, Cleveland Orchestra/Knussen
Oliver Knussen, Leopold Stokowski and Modest Mussorgsky don't at first glance look the likeliest bedfellows.
Knussen sums it up very well in the notes: the combination of Stokowski and Mussorgsky produces a third person: 'who doesn't actually exist, a Slavic bear of a composer born somewhere between the Black Sea and Cape Fear, whose orchestration is astonishingly original'.
In this performance it's a triumphant success, played with immense sweep and power, Knussen revelling in the colours conjured by a master craftsman whose work he's admired most of his life.
www.bbc.co.uk /music/classical/reviews/mussorgskystokowksi_knussen.shtml   (710 words)

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