Orchestra of the Swan to perform Umpteenth Violin Concerto by Ivor award-winning jazz composer Django Bates
Orchestra of the Swan will contrast classical works by Beethoven against contemporary jazz when they perform at Stratford upon Avon, Hereford and London this spring.
Winner of the 2019 Ivor Award for Jazz, Django Bates’ Umpteenth Violin Concerto is a celebration of the violin, inspired by jazz and folk music. A founder member of Loose Tubes, Bates is an internationally-acclaimed performer and composer with the ability to travel effortlessly between the jazz world and the classical.
His Umpteenth Violin Concerto was composed in 2004 and has been reworked for this special performance by Orchestra of the Swan, where it will be performed by guest soloist Thomas Gould.
Thomas Gould will also perform Bates’ own cadenzas for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, linking the two works across time. With an additional performance of Beethoven’s volcanic Prometheus Overture, this promises to be very far from your umpteenth Beethoven orchestral concert.
Django Bates comments, “Umpteen is an old fashioned word meaning ‘an indefinite large number’. There are so many violin concertos in the world (often given numbers instead of names) that mine is perhaps the umpteenth. The piece explores infinity, as music often does. It is also a wry comment on those radio stations that play the Mendelssohn and Bruch Concertos in a never-ending cycle.”
“Umpteenth embraces melodious folk music from an imaginary land, pays homage to its great concerti predecessors (even offering a small Mendelssohn quote) and, above all, celebrates the violin and the drama which it can create.”
“The piece was written in 2004 and for some time I have wanted to re-bar some passages and to extend the joyous finale. Orchestra of the Swan have kindly made those revisions possible so I am very excited to hear this updated Umpteenth Violin Concerto performed with soloist Thomas Gould.”
Orchestra of the Swan performs Umpeenth Violin Concerto at Stratford Play House on 24 March, The Courtyard in Hereford on 26 March and Kings Place, London, on 3 April.
Orchestra of the Swan
Umpteenth Violin Concerto
24 March, 7.30pm
Stratford Play House, 14 Rother Street, Stratford-Upon-Avon CV37 6LU
26 March, 7.30pm
The Courtyard, Edgar Street, Hereford HR4 9JR
3 April, 7.30pm
Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG
Beethoven The Creatures of Prometheus, Overture
Django Bates Umpteenth
Violin Concerto
Beethoven
Violin Concerto with cadenzas by Django
Bates
Conductor Eckehard
Stier
Violin Thomas Gould
Comments