On 20 December at the Barbican Timothy Brock and the BBC Symphony Orchestra premiere Neil Brand’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, a new evening-length adaptation of Conan Doyle’s classic mystery for eight actors and orchestra, which stars Mark Gatiss as Sherlock Holmes and Sanjeev Bhaskar as Dr. Watson.
The 75-minute piece continues Brand’s longstanding relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 2013 they premiered his adaptation of The Wind in the Willows for orchestra and actors, which starred Stephen Mangan, Claire Skinner, Philip Jackson, and Carl Prekopp; a behind-the-scenes look at the work, introduced by Brand, is available here.
Brand’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol appeared in 2014, another commission from BBC Radio 3 and 4, combining the forces of BBC Singers and BBC SO in an extravagant and imaginative piece of musical storytelling. It is scheduled to receive six performances in Latvia at Riga’s Dailes Theatre – the largest theatre in the Baltic region – between 28 December and January 7, in a new Latvian translation.
In 2010 Brand composed a new score for Alfred Hitchock’s 74-minute silent movie Blackmail, screened and accompanied by live orchestra at the Barbican. In 2011 the BBC SO also premiered his 92-minute score for Anthony Asquith’s iconic 1921 informational film Underground at the Barbican. As well as conducting Brand’s scores, Timothy Brock has played a key role as orchestrator, a role he reprised for The Hound of the Baskervilles.
As Sherlock Mark Gatiss continues a long-running association with the fictional detective, famously playing the role of Holmes’ brother Mycroft in the BBC’s Sherlock, which he co-wrote and produced with Steven Moffat. Details of the sold-out performance are available here.