Anno combines Anna Meredith's own newly-commissioned music, extracts from Vivaldi's Four Seasons and video installations by her sister, Eleanor Meredith. A 60-minute immersive work for string orchestra and electronics, it proved to be a highlight of the Spitalfields Festival when it launched in the Oval Space, London on 6 and 7 June (by the Scottish Ensemble under their Artistic Director Jonathan Morton). They gave 4 performances over the 2 days, and are bringing Anno to Scotland in November with 6 performances in Glasgow and Edinburgh:
PRESS
"The idea was to give a fresh context to his big hit 'The Four Seasons'. Performers such as Nigel Kennedy aim to do that by stomping or scraping through the original notes. Anna Meredith's way was subtler, more magical. She cherry-picked movements from each concerto and wove herself in and out with her own disarming concoctions of jabbing, hovering or twiddling strings, electronic fuzz, and mounting repetitive pulses. Italian baroque met techno, and the marriage was most entertaining...
Breast-beating contemporary music is all very well, but sometimes you just want to have fun and smile."
The Times (Geoff Brown), 9 June 2016