News

16 Jan 2020

BBC Music gives excellent review of Paredes’ Zuhuy Kak recording by de Saram

Hilda Paredes’ work for solo cello Zuhuy Kak, performed by the legendary Rohan de Saram has been released on 15th November 2019 on the CD 20th Century British Works for Solo Cello on First Hand Records (FHR045). The CD has received an excellent review by BBC Music Magazine (November 2019). Helen Wallace writes: 'Saram, former cellist of the Arditti Quartet and a tireless adventurer in new music, marks his 80th birthday with a very personal collection, almost a musical ‘This is Your Life’. Each of the works was written for him by composer friends and colleagues over his six-decade-long career.
16 Jan 2020

Ed Hughes’ ‘Sun, New Moon and Women Shouting’ Upcoming Performance

UYMP is very excited to announce that Ed Hughes’ work for choral a cappella vocal ensemble SSC-tTBarB, Sun, New Moon and Women Shouting will be performed by I Fagiolini at Kings Palace in London (25th April, 2020).

Tickets for the concert ‘Au Naturel: Nature Unwrapped’, featuring Hughes’ work, can be purchased here and I Fagiolini have also very graciously given permission for their recording of Sun, New Moon and Women Shouting to be featured on Hughes’ website.
15 Jan 2020

Tinoco's 'Archipelago' receives fantastic reviews

Luís Tinoco’s new CD on Odradek has received two great reviews, in Memetaria in the USA by Thomas May and in Pizzicato by Remy Franck. Archipelago is reviewed as a recommended new release by May. He starts by saying: 'Have you heard the wonderful music of Luís Tinoco? I invite you to try out the latest album of his work, Archipelago, recently released on the Odradek label. I first encountered this excellent Portuguese composer and acclaimed radio host — who grew up in the post-revolution generation — in the early Morlot days with Seattle Symphony, when they played FrisLand, a kind of orchestral ode to Bill Frisell. (FrisLand is available, along with such works as Tinoco’s Cello Concerto, on his previous Odradek album, The Blue Voice of the Water).'
10 Jan 2020

BBC R3’s Record Review selects Tinoco’s ‘Archipelago’ CD for ‘New Year, New Music’

Luis Tinoco’s vibrant new CD Archipelago, released in November on Odradek, featured on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review with Andrew McGregor as part of its ‘New Year, New Music’ season last Saturday, 4th January, with compliments to everyone involved in the creation of the music and album. McGregor gives the CD a top rating: ‘It’s one of the best-recorded percussion ensembles I’ve heard in ages’. McGregor conveys the skill of the composer, the virtuousity of the performers and the expertise of the sound engineers when he says that Tinoco’s music is ‘showcased' in this new album by contemporary percussion ensemble Drumming GP’ and goes on to say: ‘Tinoco's music for them is interesting enough in its own right; you get Mind the Gap for solo marimba, his memories of travelling in London, as well as Genetically Modified Fados, reactions to old recordings of Portuguese (Fado) songs. But the recording itself is demonstration class; so vivid, airy and resonant. The album's called Archipelago; it's new from the Odradek label.’
9 Jan 2020

Fabulous review in Fanfare for Simaku’s new Naxos ‘Solos and Duos’ CD

Fanfare Magazine (USA) has given a glowing review of Thomas Simaku’s new CD on Naxos – Solos and Duos for violin and piano (Naxos 8.579035) in its Issue 43:3 (January/February 2020). The reviewer, James H. North, begins by saying that it really is difficult to compare Thomas Simaku’s music to anything one has heard: ‘His music is so original that past experience fails. How can one describe his music? Simaku seems to create his own structure as he goes—the music reeks of impetuosity, as if he were dashing off the notes sequentially.’ North cites Scheuregger (Tempo 73 (290) pp. 40–50), Simaku’s former student, and Simaku himself, on Simaku’s upbringing under the repressive Stalinist regime in Albania, on international Modernist and Southern Albanian influences and on Simaku’s love of Hungarian composers Ligeti and Kurtág.
17 Dec 2019

Paredes appointed as Senior Composer to June in Buffalo 2020

UYMP is delighted that Hilda Paredes has been invited to be a Senior Composer at June in Buffalo 2020, thus one or more of her pieces will be performed at the festival. Other Senior Composers are David Felder, Robert H.P. Platz, Roger Reynolds and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. In addition, the Arditti Quartet, with whom Paredes has a long association, will be one of the resident ensembles (together with Ensemble Signal, Ensemble Son, Slee Sinfonietta and Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra), and Irvine Arditti will be a special guest, alongside Brad Lubman and Nicholas Isherwood.
13 Dec 2019

Tinoco 'Archipelago' CD on Luxembourg radio's 'CD-Klassik'

Luis Tinoco's wonderful new CD on Odradek Records with the Drumming Grupo de Percussão was introduced on Luxembourg radio's 'CD-Klassik' yesterday and today, 12th and 13th December 2019. CD-Klassik suggests new CDs for your collection. The radio station calls this CD a 'hommage to percussion' and says that it takes us into new sound worlds. To listen: Een Hommage un d'Perkussioun .
5 Dec 2019

UYMP’s James Weeks and Hilda Paredes win Ivors Composer Awards

UYMP is delighted to announce that Hilda Paredes was awarded the 2019 Ivors Composer Award for ‘Stage Work’ for her composition Harriet and James Weeks was awarded the 2019 Ivors Composer Award for ‘Small Chamber’ for his composition Leafleoht.
2 Dec 2019

Russian Premiere of Ed Hughes’ ‘Sun, New Moon and Women Shouting’: Performed by I Fagiolini

Outstanding vocal group I Fagiolini will give the Russian premiere of Ed Hughes’s Sun, New Moon and Women Shouting on Sunday 8 December 2019 in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, as part of an international tour of their Au Natural programme.
27 Nov 2019

Standing ovation for Thomas Simaku in the Netherlands

Two new works by Professor of Composition Thomas Simaku received their world premieres at the 40th edition of the Moderne Muziek Nijmegen Festival.The programme, which took place in the Netherlands on Sunday 24 November 2019, also included a string quartet by Rebecca Saunders, featuring Joseph Houston, the British pianist now living in Berlin, and the Paris–based Quatuor Diotima.

Written for the York alumnus Joseph Houston, Catena for solo piano is a substantial work consisting of five movements. As the Latin title itself suggests, Catena is a chain of musical events linked by a network of relationships at various levels, musical and otherwise.
18 Nov 2019

Tinoco is honoured with the DSCH – Shostakovich Ensemble’s new prize for composers

UYMP is proud to announce that house composer Luis Tinoco has been awarded the DSCH - Shostakovich Ensemble 2019 Prize for Composers and thereby recognised nationally and internationally as one of the most relevant Portuguese composers of today. This is the award’s first year and it is the only award in Portugal which honours the career of a composer. The prize includes the commission of a piece for the ensemble and Luis has chosen to write a work for clarinet, violin and piano entitled ‘Aleppo’, which will be premiered by clarinettist Pascal Moraguès, violinist Corey Cerovsek and pianist and artistic director of the DSCH – Shostakovich Ensemble Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro on 28th November, at the Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, in a concert entitled 'CROSSINGS: Classical, Folk and Jazz'.
12 Nov 2019

Thomas Simaku’s CD on Portuguese National Radio

Portuguese National Radio has dedicated an hour-long programme to the latest CD by Thomas Simaku - Professor of Composition at York University.

Broadcast on Sunday 10 November, the programme included pieces such as the BASCA Award winning work Soliloquy V – Flauto Acerbo performed by Chris Orton; Signals and Deux Esquisses performed by the York alumnus Joseph Houston, and ENgREnage and Sound Tree performed by Peter Sheppard Skaerved and Roderick Chadwick. The programme, Geografia dos Sons, is available on the RTP website.