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Dalia Stasevska and the BBC Symphony Orchestra Perform the UK Premiere of Anna Meredith’s Nautilus, for Orchestra, at the Barbican

Feb. 15, 2023

The orchestral version of Anna Meredith’s fanfare Nautilus received its UK premiere at the Barbican on January 28 in a family concert given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dalia Stasevska, an ecological-inspired program enhanced by live hand-drawn projected animations by Grégoire Pont. 

The track from Meredith's 2016 debut album Varmints received its world premiere in the orchestral version in 2021 from Stasevska and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, who commissioned the arrangement. Stasevska conducted the piece in August 2022 at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the same orchestra gave the US premiere of the piece in April under the baton of Thomas Adès. Stasevska will conduct further performances of the work in April this year with the San Francisco Symphony.

Outside of the concert hall, Meredith’s track has been used to advertise Prada and in the Netflix documentary, Gaga: Five Foot Two, about Lady Gaga; it has also been choreographed for the Royal Ballet & London Sinfonietta by Calvin Richardson for the 2019 re-opening of the Linbury Theatre. 

Meredith says of the piece:

"Nautilus was written as sort of call to arms (for myself!) and was one of the first tracks I wrote when I started to work in electronics alongside my acoustic or orchestral writing. This shift was my way to reclaim some power over my writing, making albums where I would be in complete control. It’s a lovely full circle for this piece to now be rearranged back to an orchestral form.

I came up with the rising line whilst stomping along a beach in Scotland and experimenting with placing my steps across different parts of the material to create the shift in feel you hear roughly two thirds in."

To learn more about Anna Meredith, visit: fabermusic.com.

Anna Meredith
Nautilus (2011/arr. 2021 by Jack Ross)
for orchestra
2(1.pic).2.2(2.bcl).2-4.3.2.btbn.1-timp-3perc: xyl/timp/t.bells/SD/mar/BD/floor tom-str
6'

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