September 2026 sees George Benjamin give the Swedish premieres of his Interludes and Aria from ‘Lessons in Love and Violence’ and, with Bertrand Chamayou, Divisions for piano, four hands. Interludes and Aria – an orchestral montage from his opera Lessons in Love and Violence – will be performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin, with Barbara Hannigan (who created the role of Isabel in 2018) as soloist, on 17 and 18 September.
Divisions, performed on 19 September, is titled after the term used in 17th-century English keyboard music for a set of variations. In Benjamin’s piece it also applies to the physical separation of two players at one instrument. The piece opens with quiet but insistent repeated notes, as fragments of melody begin to appear and, in turn, clouds of harmony. Different strands of music are played simultaneously and juxtaposed accordingly, against a slow-moving backdrop, which is disturbed by cascades and ripples.
Divisions premiered with the composer and longtime collaborator Pierre-Laurent Aimard in June 2025 at the Boulez Saal and made its UK debut with the duo at Wigmore Hall in November 2025, as well as its US premiere at 92nd Street Y in New York. In the second half of 2026 Benjamin and Aimard perform Divisions at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ and in Munich as part of the musica viva series, alongside the opera Picture a day like this; they most recently presented the piece at the Festival Messiaen in July 2026. It will also appear with Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen at the 2026 London Piano Festival and makes its Australian debut with Miles Walter and Lee Dionne on 4 September in Sydney.
Composed as a 70th birthday gift for Simon Rattle, Interludes and Aria premiered to critical acclaim in January 2025 with Rattle, Barbara Hannigan, and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican. The 15-minute orchestral work is cast in seven unbroken movements and the opera’s ‘Pearl aria’ at its heart, with text by Martin Crimp. Purely instrumental highlights include a sombre nocturne, with antiphonal octaves in the brass and tolling gongs; a swift, energetic toccata; and a stately chorale that erupts into a violent orchestral conflagration, leading to a restless, brief coda. The full score is now on sale here.
The 2017 opera, based on the life of Edward II, is the third of Benjamin’s four collaborations with Martin Crimp. Its narrative follows the King’s obsessive devotion to his lover Gaveston and his scandalous - ultimately fatal - neglect of both his wife Isabel and his country. It returns to London in November 2026 in a semi-staging at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra – where Benjamin is currently composer-in-residence for three seasons – and conducted by Edward Gardner.