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US Premiere of Akira Nishimura's Sinfonietta on Beethoven's Eight Symphonies with Spokane Symphony

Jul. 01, 2017

US Premiere of Akira Nishimura's <em>Sinfonietta on Beethoven's Eight Symphonies</em> with Spokane Symphony

Conductor Morihiko Nakahara leads the Spokane Symphony in the US premiere of Akira Nishimura’s Sinfonietta on Beethoven’s Eight Symphonies on August 9, as part of the orchestra’s “Soirée on the Edge” series.

Nishimura’s Sinfonietta, a thrilling pseudo-fantasy on the first eight of Beethoven’s symphonies, was composed on commission from Japan’s Izumi Hall in 2007 as a kind of overture to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. “In each movement,” Nishimura writes, “there are phrases quoted from every corresponding movement of Beethoven's symphonies 1-8. Those phrases are free from the original ordering or context. Some of them are almost similar to the originals, and others are significantly changed.”

Watch a performance of the work with the Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka:

Nakahara has been a champion of Nishimura’s music in recent years, having conducted the South Carolina Philharmonic in the US premiere of Sakurabito in 2016. That work, which takes its name from the ancient Japanese term meaning “people who love and admire the beauty of cherry blossoms,” relates the genesis of the flower to the lifespan of a person.

For more information on Akira Nishimura, visit zen-on.co.jp.

Akira Nishimura
Sinfonietta on Beethoven’s Eight Symphonies (2007)
for chamber orchestra
1(pic).1.1.1-2.1.1.0-2perc-str
11’ 


Sakurabito
 (2010)
for orchestra
2.2.2.2-2.2.0.0-3perc-hp-str
13’

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