Image: Ntando Brown

Chineke!'s winter programme balances Beethoven with crisp contemporary classics, opening with a commission for the 2021 Edinburgh Festival.

This London premiere of Blush, Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s new work sits alongside Beethoven’s light-hearted Symphony No.8, a piece that looks back to the classicism of Haydn and Mozart, and which divided critics when it premiered in Vienna in 1812.

Named after the poem by Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Women is Valerie Coleman’s tribute to inspirational Black women in society: Michelle Obama, Claressa Shields, Katherine Johnson, Serena Williams and Angelou herself.

This arrangement for wind quintet, accompanied by chamber orchestra, has a calypso feel and is Coleman’s first piece written for orchestra.

The late African American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson described his work as ‘written improvisation’, and it is clear that he was not afraid to explore and experiment.

Composed in 1953, Sinfonietta No.1 for Strings is a three-movement piece structured on classical lines, yet infused with syncopation and tonalities that hint of jazz and blues.

Each section contains its own sense of drama, and nowhere is this more evident than in the final movement, the taut Rondo: Allegro furioso.

Performers

Chineke! Orchestra

Leslie Suganandarajah, conductor

Shantanique Moore, flute

Toyin Spellman-Diaz, oboe

Mariam Adam, clarinet

Monica Ellis, bassoon

Priscilla Rinehart, horn

Repertoire

• Ayanna Witter-Johnson: Blush

• Valerie Coleman: Concerto for wind quintet & chamber orchestra (Phenomenal Women)

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• Perkinson: Sinfonietta No.1 for strings

• Beethoven: Symphony No.8