A new Concerto for Orchestra by George Benjamin – a work tailor-made for the players of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, will be premiered at the BBC Proms on 30 August, before performances at Musikfest Berlin and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. The composer himself conducts a programme that also includes three new Purcell transcriptions and Oliver Knussen’s The Way to Castle Yonder.
The 18-minute Concerto for Orchestra – Benjamin’s first purely instrumental work since his Duet for piano and orchestra (2008) – is the latest product of the extraordinarily close relationship between the composer and the MCO, who premiered his 2012 opera Written on Skin in Aix and have since toured it around the world, including to the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.
Full details of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra Prom can be found here