For this recording, Barbara Hannigan, the Reinbert de Leeuw Professor of Music at the Academy, leads young musicians from the Academy and The Juilliard School in a programme of Stravinsky's most iconic chamber ensemble repertoire, including the neoclassical chamber concerto Dumbarton Oaks. The ensemble is joined by soprano and Academy alum Alexandra Heath, who sings Three Japanese Lyrics, Two Poems of Balmont and Three little songs. For the recording project, Academy conducting student Charlotte Corderoy (who has since graduated) was selected as an assistant to Barbara Hannigan, who then entrusted one of the pieces on the album (Concertino for twelve instruments) to Charlotte's hands.
Listen to Stravinsky Chamber Works here.
'It has truly been a joy to explore, perform and record Stravinsky's chamber music repertoire with my younger colleagues of the Royal Academy of Music and The Juilliard School. What a wonderful ensemble of crackerjack players from these top-tier international institutions. Recording the Stravinsky album also serves as an important stepping stone in these young musicians' careers, and it was especially illuminating that the Academy’s Principal Jonathan Freeman-Attwood produced the recording.'
Barbara Hannigan
The project marks another international collaboration between the two institutions, and continues a long and fruitful artistic relationship. In 2001, a combined ensemble showcased repertoire by Academy and Juilliard composers in both London and New York, leading to the first recording by the two institutions. Since then, this relationship has seen the ensemble perform a series of concerts at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in the company of Academy alum Sir Elton John, three BBC Proms concerts, the joint commission of the opera Kommilitonen! by the late Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, a Bach tour of New York, Boston and Leipzig with Masaaki Suzuki and Rachel Podger, as well as a recording of polyphonic masterpieces by Giovanni Gabrieli and his contemporaries for Linn Records.
Barbara Hannigan introduces new Academy recording: Stravinsky Chamber Works
The Academy has been producing recordings for over 25 years. These projects help to equip our students with the particular skills required for 'the studio' and empower them to take a leading role in creative partnerships with other musicians, engineers and producers. Recording projects have included Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen with Sir Charles Mackerras, Rameau’s Dardanus under Laurence Cummings, Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale with Oliver Knussen and Harrison Birtwistle and, most recently, Bach Partitas re-imagined with Trevor Pinnock.
Furthermore, in 2017 we launched a special Bicentenary Series with Linn Records, which offers our Bicentenary Scholars an industry-level experience of recording and the chance to release their music into the world. We look forward to two more releases in the Bicentenary Series in November, as well as an all-Nielsen recording in 2025 conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth, featuring celebrated arrangements by our Oliver Knussen Professor of Composition, Hans Abrahamsen.