Van der Aa’s music in the new season:

Up-close

Up-close and US performances
The 2013–14 season looks set to be another busy one for Michel van der Aa. It begins in the USA, where several of his works are being performed this autumn. The White Light Festival at New York’s Lincoln Centre will include a Van der Aa portrait on 28 October. The concert will feature the first US performance of Up-Close, performed by Kaori Yamagami and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and members of the International Contemporary Ensemble will play the solo works Memo, Oog and Transit.

There is more Van der Aa in New York on 23 November, when excerpts from After Life will be sung at Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of the 21c Liederabend op. 3 Festival of Contemporary Art Song.

The winner of the 2013 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, Up-Close is being taken up by a number of soloists and ensembles and will soon also be heard in Paris, Wrocław, Prague and Helsinki. There are further North American performances in the new year, when Johannes Moser and the Los Angeles Philharmonic give the West Coast premiere on 28 January. This is followed by performances in Seattle in February given by Julie Albers and the Seattle Chamber Players. For a full list of international performances, see here.

Up-Close is currently available to order as a DVD or video download from the Disquiet webstore.

Clarinet concerto
Van der Aa’s next work for soloist and ensemble is a concerto for clarinet, ensemble and electronics. Co-commissioned by the London Sinfonietta, the Finnish Avanti! Chamber Orchestra and Germany’s Ensemble musikFabrik, the piece features a ‘modular’ solo part – tailored to the different personalities and skills of each of the three first soloists, Mark van de Wiel, Kari Kriikku and Carl Rosman.

The concerto will receive its world premiere in London on 30 April 2014 with Van de Wiel and the London Sinfonietta in a concert that also includes the UK premiere of the complete Here trilogy. The second performance will be on 7 June, with Carl Rosman and musikFabrik, conducted by Susanna Mälkki. The Finnish premiere, with Kari Kriikku and Avanti!, will take place in autumn 2014.