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Birmingham Conservatoire leads the way in Messiaen centenary celebrations

5068/JK 19 May 2008

Eminent scholars Claude Samuel and Hugh Macdonald and renowned organist Dame Gillian Weir are among those who will visit Birmingham in June to take part in the primary international scholarly event celebrating the centenary of the birth of the French composer Olivier Messiaen.

The Messiaen 2008 International Centenary Conference, organised by Birmingham Conservatoire (part of Birmingham City University), will take place from 20-24 June and will be the largest-ever gathering of Messiaen scholars, with delegates from Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Singapore, Spain, UK, Ukraine and the USA expected to attend.

Keynote Speakers Claude Samuel and Hugh Macdonald lead a conference programme which includes papers on almost every aspect of Messiaen life, music, influences and influence. The international line-up of speakers includes virtually all of the world’s leading Messiaen scholars, notably:

• Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone (authors of the seminal Messiaen, Yale UP and Messiaen: Oiseaux exotiques, Ashgate)
• Christopher Dingle (author of The Life of Messiaen, CUP, Messiaen’s Final Works, Ashgate, and co-editor with Nigel Simeone of Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature, Ashgate)
• Vincent Benitez (Messiaen: A Guide to Research, Routledge)
• Siglind Bruhn (author of books in English and German on Messiaen’s religious works)
• Jean Boivin (La Classe de Messiaen, Christian Bourgois)
• Robert Fallon (author of several book chapters and prize-winning research on Messiaen’s birdsong)
• Christoph Neidhofer (an influential theorist and analyst)
• Roger Nichols (author of numerous books on French music)
• Rebecca Rischin (For the end of Time: the story of the Messiaen Quartet)
• Andrew Shenton (organiser of the Boston University Messiaen Project and author of Olivier Messiaen’s System of Signs, Ashgate)
• Robert Sholl (editor of Messiaen Studies, CUP)

Composers François Bernard Mâche and Julian Anderson will also contribute to the event.

International performers Dame Gillian Weir, Peter Hill, Murail specialist Marilyn Nonken and Sigune von Osten headline a programme of four concerts open to the public, taking place in Town Hall, the Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire Recital Hall and St Chad’s Cathedral.

The orchestral repertoire of the Town Hall concert ranges from Messiaen’s first published orchestral work, the remarkable Les Offrandes oubliées (written when he was just 21), to the musical souvenirs of Japan heard in Sept Haïkaï .

Other concerts present genuine rarities, such as an evening of piano and chamber works not heard anywhere else this year, performed by renowned Messiaen pianist Peter Hill, as well as the song cycle Harawi , sung by one of Messiaen’s favourite interpreters Sigune von Osten.

Dame Gillian Weir closes the concert programme on 23 June with the organ cycle Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte-Trinité on the superb Walker organ at St Chad’s Cathedral.

Open to all, Messiaen 2008 is among the most significant of the many major events and celebrations that are occurring across the world this year. Messiaen 2008 is supported by the British Academy. Further details are available on www.conservatoire.bcu.ac.uk/messiaen

For further information please contact Birmingham City University Media Relations Office on 0121 331 6738, email press@bcu.ac.uk or out of hours on 07967 271 532.

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