Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, CBSO Centre, Birmingham
A nostalgic evening of avant-garde music that harks back to the Seventies
The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group does star concerts, which fill (or nearly) the CBSO Centre; and they do old-fashioned New Music concerts, which don’t quite empty it, but leave one wondering who exactly – if anyone - some of the works being played are intended to reach. Their latest offering was of this latter kind. The performers came and went, the audience clapped politely, the electric keyboard went wrong, luckily near the start of Enno Poppe’s Salz, so that we didn’t have to hear too much of it twice. The instrumentalists, brilliant players as one knows, communed with some pretty impenetrable material, “explained” by programme notes rich in imagery and gobbledy-gook. It was like being back in the Seventies: even quite a nostalgic afternoon, in its way.
As the glorious parade of British orchestras at the Proms has showcased, it's never been a better time for the native music scene across the board. Now the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, currently enjoying a honeymoon period with its Music Director of two seasons Andris Nelsons, has taken another step towards consolidating its post-Rattle reputation. Edward Gardner (pictured above in ENO rehearsal by Chris Christodoulou), currently doing wonderful things at English National Opera, is to take up the post of Principal Guest Conductor in September 2011.