Colin Matthews’ debut opera A Visit to Friends, with a libretto by William Boyd, opens the launches a focus on the composer at the 2025 Aldeburgh on 13 June. Aside from the opera, it will includes world premieres of chamber and orchestral repertoire from Leila Josefowicz, the Gildas Quartet, and Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra.
Cast in ten scenes after a story by Anton Chekhov, A Visit to Friends is a 90-minute work in ten scenes that sees a group of singers come together to rehearse an opera, bringing to light their desires and frustrations as it runs its course. Matthews’ music for the opera-within-an-opera draws inspiration from Scriabin, especially his Fourth Piano Sonata of 1903. Read William Boyd in the Financial Times describing the opera’s genesis here.
The production is directed by Rachael Hewer, with designs by Leanne Vandenbussche and video by Sasha Balmazi-Owen. The cast includes Marcus Farnsworth, Lotte Betts-Dean, Susanna Hurrell, Edward Hawkins, and Gary Matthewman in a non-singing role as the production’s repetiteur; Jessica Cottis conducts Aurora Orchestra. A Visit to Friends is kindly supported by the Basil Coleman Memorial Fund.
The Festival showcases new chamber works from Matthews. Leila Josefowicz, who premiered his 2009 Violin Concerto, joins Huw Watkins to premiere Paraphrases on 25 June, an 8-minute work for violin and piano. It is cast in three movements, with the opening seeing the players swap flowing melodic material in a lively dialogue; this conversation continues in the ensuing scherzo-like Vivo, with unstable syncopations and shifting patterns of duplets, triplets, and quintuplets set against each other. A Molto Sostenuto movement concludes the piece, with a simple chordal accompaniment behind warm, rising melodic figures.
On the morning of 14 June the Gildas Quartet premiere Matthews’ 17-minute String Quartet No.6. The eight-movement work draws on a multitude of dance forms, bookended by two Waltz-Mazurkas and including a Gigue, Gavotte, and Courante, as well as a Berceuse and Barcarolle for two more lyrical sequences.
A world premiere that showcases Matthews’ gifts as an orchestrator concludes the Festival on 29 June: Book 2 of Debussy’s Images from the London Symphony Orchestra and Antonio Pappano. The 14-minute selection complements his earlier orchestrations of Book I of Images and the Préludes. The premiere continues Matthews’ longstanding relationship with the LSO, where he was Associate Composer from 1992-1999.
The Festival also sees a performance of Matthews Two Tributes for chamber ensemble on 20 June from the Britten Pears Contemporary Ensemble, conducted by Jonathan Berman. The 11-minute minute diptych was written to honour Elliot Carter and the cellist Christopher van Kampen. On the morning of 21 June at the Red House, flautist Ellie Blamires from Ensemble Renard will perform Matthews’ Bell-wether for solo alto flute (2017), a brilliant 2-minute tour de force for the instrument.