New World Sounds: Music of the Americas

With a unique collaborative concert that champions the music of the Americas, London-based music charity Poliphonia, renowned for uncovering hidden musical gems of the Americas, presents its latest journey of discovery that celebrates the 80th birthday year of Brazil’s foremost composer Marlos Nobre and the 60th birthday year for composer, conductor and educationalist João Guilherme Ripper.

In a typical spirit of enterprise for which Clélia Iruzun is recognised, she makes a much anticipated London appearance with the esteemed Coull Quartet following their joint venture in Rio de Janeiro in October 2017 which was selected as one of the ten best concerts of the year by Jornal do Brasil.

For the programme’s first half Clélia and the Coull Quartet will focus on two works from amongst Brazil’s most distinguished living composers; Marlos Nobre and João Guilherme Ripper. Between these lively chamber works Clélia Iruzun (one-time pupil of Nelson Freire) will demonstrate her virtuosity in the pianistic fireworks of Alberto Ginastera’s intensely visceral Piano Sonata No 1, a formidable work intended to capture the spirit of Argentinian folk music.

The second half comprises the expansive three-movement Piano Quintet, Op 67, by Amy Beach - an American child-prodigy who became the first successful US female composer in the field of classical music and whose prolific output of some 300 works had been mostly performed and published by the time of her death in 1944. Her passionate and melodically rich Piano Quintet, with its echoes of Brahms, is masterly in its absorption of late romanticism. Closing this special American celebration will be a 'surprise' item featuring all six players.