Opera North, England plans a performance on Christmas: Joanna MacGregor on Saturday 19th Dec 2009, at 7.30pm.
“The whole sensation here was of being part of a soundscape by turns tightly controlled and running riot, awesome and playful, and aspiring to infinity.” The Guardian
Opera North favourite and internationally renowned pianist Joanna Macgregor returns for a special intimate Christmas concert of Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur I’Enfant Jesus.
A piano solo originally composed in 1944 during the occupation of Paris, this challenging and energetic work has long been associated with Joanna and has never been performed in the North. Joanna has even been invited to perform it in the Moscow Kremlin.
"Vingt Regards is massive, almost unruly in its overflow of energy and colour, teaming with gorgeous sonorities and intellectually rigorous ideas. Each movement is quite literally a meditation on a theological aspect of Messiaen’s Roman Catholic beliefs, yet the contemplations are meticulously and dramatically paced: they can be serene, fierce, languid, rigidly doctrinal or even humorous. It’s the ultimate challenge for a pianist: a whole world of colour and energy, with Gamelan influences, jazz and even plainchant…an absolute joy to perform." Joanna Macgregor. -- www.operanorth.co.uk
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