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Raymond Yiu: Symphony

With Andrew Watts (counter-tenor) and the 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.

鈥榃hen I first came to London in 1992, Aids was a big thing,鈥� says composer Raymond Yiu. 鈥榊ou went out on the scene, you鈥檇 see someone for a while and they鈥檇 disappear. Years later you鈥檇 discover that they were dead. It was horrible. And the younger generation don鈥檛 have any memory of this. For me it鈥檚 still very vivid.鈥� The central pillar of Yiu鈥檚 Symphony 鈥� a five-movement meditation on memory for orchestra and countertenor 鈥� is the fourth movement, which sets Thom Gunn鈥檚 club-scene poem to the lush orchestral sounds of 1970s disco. Around it four other movements grapple 鈥� through music and text 鈥� with the way our brains try to recover and hold on to the past. The influences are wide-ranging: Scarlatti, Berio, the Bee Gees, Basil Bunting, Nielsen and Mahler.

Duration:

28 minutes

Credits

Role Contributor
Composer Raymond Yiu
Conductor Edward Gardner
Orchestra 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra
Performer Andrew Watts

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