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David Sawer's Rumpelstiltskin Suite Premieres with George Benjamin and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

Apr. 02, 2013

David Sawer's <em>Rumpelstiltskin Suite</em> Premieres with George Benjamin and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

On April 6, as part of its 25th anniversary season, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) gives the world premiere of David Sawer’s Rumpelstiltskin Suite at London’s Wigmore Hall, conducted by George Benjamin. Based on the classic fairy tale, and scored for 13 players, the 25-minute concert suite is drawn from the composer’s 2009 Rumpelstiltskin ballet which was also premiered by BCMG and takes a fresh look at the age-old themes of transformation, ritual and revelation. The Times (London) called Sawer’s original score “a tour de force” and The Independent noted “…[it is] a rich broth...with unerring focus.” A subsequent performance follows the next day in Birmingham at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Centre. Richard Morrison of The Times (UK) wrote of the ballet premiere:

...Jones and Sawer cunningly make this Brothers Grimm fable work on two levels. On the one hand it's grotesque knockabout fun, superbly staged in an ingenious wooden box, like a magician's cabinet, so many surprises does it conceal. On another level, however, the work operates as a sharp, stark satire on material greed, and the appalling life choices that avarice forces upon us. Sawer's score is a tour de force of mostly ominous effects (his spectacular evocation of wedding bells would have impressed even past masters such as Britten and Mussorgsky), and gradually mounting frenzy as Rumpelstiltskin makes his repeated demands for his "pound of flesh." 


For concert information about the world premiere, visit Wigmore Hall.

For concert details in Birmingham, click here.

To find out more about David Sawer, visit www.universaledition.com.

David Sawer
Rumpelstiltskin Suite (2011)
for ensemble
1.1.2.1-1.1.0.1-hp.vn.va.vc.db
25'

Rumpelstiltskin(2009)
for chamber orchestra and six dancers
1.1(ca).2(bcl).1-1.1.0.1-hp-vn.va.vc.db
45'

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