John Adams: Harmonielehre

The BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Elena Schwarz performs Adams's pulsating Harmonielehre, Du Yun's Hundred Heads and, with soloist Steven Banks, Billy Child's Diaspora.

Recorded at the Barbican on Friday 8th May. Presented by Martin Handley.

Du Yun: Hundred Heads
Billy Childs: Diaspora: Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra (UK Premiere)

Interval

John Adams: Harmonielehre

Steven Banks (saxophone)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Elena Schwarz (conductor)

Billy Childs’s yearning sax sings of oppression and freedom. And a mythical Chinese monster somehow contains the spirit of jazz legend Ray Charles, in Du Yun’s Hundred Heads.

John Adams’s Harmonielehre is both a tribute to Schoenberg and a glittering celebration of West Coast counterculture. For Du Yun and Billy Childs, meanwhile, tales of Africa and China, the poetry of Maya Angelou and the deathless sound of Soul come together to create something powerful, personal and utterly new.

Every nation has a million stories: in America’s 250th year, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Elena Schwarz and saxophonist Steven Banks share some of the boldest.