This page presents a preview about the Royal Academy of Music Composer Festival in 1998, held to honor Franco Donatoni’s 70th birthday. It mentions Simon Romanos, conductor.
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London audiences will have a rare opportunity to hear conductor Simon Romanos in action in February, with a birthday festival for Italy’s leading composer.
Romanos, known in mostly Australia, Germany and Eastern Europe, is curating a festival at the Royal Academy of Music in February. It celebrates the 70th birthday of Italy’s leading composer Franco Donatoni, and his life’s work. Romanos will conduct England’s finest music students in works by Donatoni, and two of his key influences — fellow Italian Goffredo Petrassi, and Bela Bartok. Simon proposed that the Italian feature at the Royal Academy’s annual contemporary music festival, which stars a different major contemporary composer every year, including Schnittke, Ligeti and Birtwistle.
‘Donatoni has been overlooked in Britain,’ Romanos says. ‘Throughout the rest of the world he has a strong following as the Italian avant gardist. In his 70th year he has been invited to Stockholm, Salzburg, Melbourne and other cities for premières and lecture series, and he is easily ranked alongside the likes of Berio and Boulez. I felt it was a shame he wasn’t properly recognised here and that it was time to redress the situation.’
‘Donatoni is a good old-fashioned modernist. His music is inspired by nature, from the whirrings of insects to the grandeur and stillness of alpine landscapes. It is ravishing music, full of silences and colour, delicate and virile at the same time.’
The full festival runs for a week, with Franco Donatoni giving composition seminars for students at the Academy, who will give lunchtime and evening concerts on Wednesday 11, Thursday 12 and Friday 13 February. There will be 37 works performed over the three days; 21 of them by Franco Donatoni. ‘It’s a fitting way to mark birthday an important birthday in the life of one of the century’s important musicians. Donatoni is really looking forward to working with the students at the Academy. He’s the sort of musician who is as interested in sharing his knowledge with the new generation, as introducing his music to a new audience.’
‘I have constructed the festival programme on three levels, like a Baroque palazzo reflecting the image, influences and intersts of the seigneur back to himself. It pays homage to Donatoni’s influences — Webern and Bartok; his contemporaries — Petrassi and Maderna; and his pupils, represented by the students of the Academy and by the works of his most important pupil, 1996 Mozart Prize-winner Simone Fontanelli.’
‘A large part of the challenge of creating a festival like this has been to utilise the full resources of the Royal Academy of Music. The students seem to be enjoying the chance to play some really very difficult and rewarding pieces. We shall finish off the week’s celebrations with a gala concert of orchestral works featuring Franco Donatoni’s Duo pour Bruno.’
Simon Romanos bases his freelance career in London, his home for 10 years. He makes regular appearances at the Sydney Spring Festival of Contemporary Music, and has worked with the Oxford Orchestra da Camera, the Australian Opera, English National Ballet and the Stuttgart State Opera.