Prestigious London dates announced for Birmingham conductor.
Birmingham’s highly regarded young conductor Alpesh Chauhan is to undertake two prestigious London engagements. The first sees the 25-year old making his Proms debut conducting the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the Ten Pieces schools project. The concerts, at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday July 23rd and Sunday July 24th (the first of 2016’s Promenade Concerts to be announced), are a key component of the second year of Ten Pieces, a BBC Music initiative aimed at developing an interest and participation in classical music amongst primary and secondary school children.
For Chauhan it is a return to a project that he was heavily involved in during 2015 when the focus was on children of primary school age. This year’s Ten Pieces is aimed at students aged between 11-14 and music performed will include Leonard Bernstein’s Mambo from West Side Story, Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries and extracts from Bizet’s opera Carmen.
On Thursday, January 26th 2017 Chauhan will make his London Symphony Orchestra debut at the Barbican Hall in a performance of Richard Strauss’ Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration). The evening’s programme also contains two works by Brahms – Piano Concerto Number 1 and Variations on a Theme by Haydn – with the former featuring dazzling young pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, also making his first appearance with the LSO.
Chauhan, who is Assistant Conductor at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, recently conducted La Filarmonica Toscanini in Parma and the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy as part of a growing roster of European classical ensembles he has worked with.
Before that, Chauhan can be seen in Birmingham on Wednesday, March 9th at Symphony Hall conducting the CBSO in a programme of works the highlight of which is the UK premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Azul.