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Lighting up the sky: Premiere of the Month

2019-10-29T15:35:00

IMG_0318 cr Emile Holba

An aerial journey for double bass and strings

Its twisting, tumbling flashes of green and purple are synonymous with icy wastes and long polar nights, but the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, is not so often associated with the earthiness of the double bass. ‘It isn’t the obvious medium for depicting something so ethereal,’ says Berlin Philharmonic principal bassist Matthew McDonald, ‘but in this piece, the composer has created a three-dimensional sound world from extreme registers and colours.’

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