Hear and Now

In the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow at 7.30pm on Saturday 29th October 2011 Glasgow Chamber Choir will be joining the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Martyn Brabbins, in an excerpt from The Great Learning by the late Cornelius Cardew.  The concert will be recorded and broadcast on a future edition of BBC Radio 3's Hear and Now programme.

Tickets, limited to 4 per application, are free, but may be subject to a booking fee (not sure how that works exactly, but there you go) from the City Halls Box Office (0141 353 8000) at Candleriggs, Glasgow G1 1NQ.

The flyer for the concert, which is reproduced here, describes the Cardew piece thus:

The second half of the concert presents an excerpt from Cardew's most influential experimental work, The Great Learning, based on the teachings of Confucious.  Cardew dedicated the work to the "Scratch Orchestra", a London-based ensemble he founded with Howard Skempton, and whose members included professional musicians and people with no previous experience of the arts.  In this performance, the BBC SSO evokes the have-a-go spirit of the Scratch Orchestra by inviting a number of amateur musicians to take part, as well as the singers from Glasgow Chamber Choir.

The concert is billed as featuring the unique groundbreaking music of four major modern composers so as well as the Cardew, the BBC SSO will be performing Ohoi by Giacinto Scelsi, Solo for sliding trombone by John Cage, and Lento by Howard Skempton.