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Colin Matthews's Debussy and Ravel Orchestrations in the US and UK

Jan. 03, 2017

Colin Matthews's Debussy and Ravel Orchestrations in the US and UK

Colin Matthews’s revelatory orchestrations of works by Debussy and Ravel can be heard in the US and the UK this month with performances by The Florida Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic.

On January 7 and 8, conductor Michael Francis leads The Florida Orchestra in two performances of Matthews’s orchestration to Debussy’s The Sunken Cathedral. At the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, UK on January 13, Nicholas Collon conducts the BBC Philharmonic in the premiere performance of Matthews’s new orchestration of Ravel’s La valée des cloches, from Miroirs, alongside a performance of his recent arrangement of Oiseaux tristes.

Since their debut, Matthews’s Debussy orchestrations have become beloved concert works with orchestras around the world, attracting rave reviews with each performance. Following a run of performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2011, Jeremy Eichler (The Boston Globe) hailed Matthews’s “excellent job in imagining how Debussy might have heard these Préludes reborn as works for large orchestra.” Stephen Eddins (AllMusic) writes:

Fans of impressionist orchestral music…may well experience a thrill, as if a lost Debussy orchestral piece had been rediscovered. Matthews has a consummate, almost uncanny understanding of Debussy’s orchestrational style…it requires no stretch whatsoever to imagine that these orchestrations could have been [Debussy’s] own.

For more information on Colin Matthews, visit fabermusic.com.

Colin Matthews / Claude A. Debussy
La cathédrale engloutie (2006)
for orchestra
2(2pic).afl.2.ca.2.bcl.cbcl.2.cbsn-4.3.3.1-timp.4perc-2hp.cel-str
5’

Colin Matthews / Maurice Ravel
La Vallée des Cloches from Miroirs (2016)
for orchestra
pic.1.afl.2.ca.2.bcl.2.cbsn-4.2.3.1-timp.3perc-2hp.cel-str
6’

Oiseaux tristes from Miroirs (2015)
for orchestra
pic.1.afl.2.ca.Ebcl.1.bcl.2.cbsn-4.2.3.1-timp.2perc-2hp.cel-str
4’

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