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Jonathan Harvey’s Messages Wins Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Best Large Scale Composition

May. 30, 2012

Jonathan Harvey’s <em>Messages</em> Wins Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Best Large Scale Composition

Jonathan Harvey’s Messages, for large orchestra and chorus, has won the 2011 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Large Scale Composition. Established in 1989 and presented in association with BBC Radio 3, the prestigious RPS Music Awards celebrate outstanding achievement in live classical music in the UK and abroad. This is Harvey’s second RPS award in this category, having won in 2006 for his piece ...towards a pure land, for large orchestra.

In an awards ceremony on May 8 at London’s Dorchester Hotel, The RPS judges hailed Messages:

Jonathan Harvey has created a work of exceptional epic and spiritual quality - a most welcome addition to the repertoire of both professional and amateur choirs. The choir's incantation of ancient angelic names is set within a sound world that is both profoundly rooted and ethereal, a compelling experience for audiences.

Originally composed in 2007, Messages was premiered in March of the following year by the Rundfunkchor Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and Reinbert de Leeuw, who commissioned the work with their Chief Conductor Simon Halsey in partnership with the Fundación Patronata de la Semana de Musica Religiosa de Cuenca. The work received its UK premiere in 2011 with Joseph Cullen conducting the Huddersfield Choral Society and the Orchestra of Opera North.

Harvey describes the detail and significance of the work:

The text of Messages consists entirely of the names of Judaic and Persian angels. The choir can be thought to invoke angels, as in the great Renaissance and Baroque pictures of angel choirs, many of whom not only sing, but play Baroque instruments. Equally the choir can be imagined as being angels, bringing their spiritual messages to mankind.

Harvey’s RPS award marks the seventh time in the last ten years that the Large Scale Composition award has gone to a Faber composer. Past winners include George Benjamin (Palimpsests, 2002), Thomas Adès (The Tempest, 2004), Julian Anderson (Book of Hours, 2005), Jonathan Harvey (…towards a pure land, 2006), Thomas Adès (Tevot, 2007), and George Benjamin (Into the Little Hill, 2008).

For more information on Jonathan Harvey, visit his profile on www.fabermusic.com.

View the complete winners circle for the 2011 RPS awards at www.rpsmusicawards.com.

Messages (2007)
for SATB chorus and orchestra
3(3.pic & afl).3(3.ca).3(3.bcl).2-4.3.3.1-5perc-cel-cimbalom-pno-2hp-str
25’

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