Anna Meredith's 'Five Telegrams' Opens BBC Proms

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'The lingering images come from Meredith’s music – the clashing, grinding riffs, and occasional moments of tender intimacy; shorn of cosmetics, it’s strong enough to stand on its own.'

The Guardian (Andrew Clements) July 2018

'Meredith has skilfully transmuted raw actuality into a distilled, at times near weightless elegy: no naive pretence that, a century on, we can or should recreate that suffering but an invitation to meditate and remember...Meredith has made within it a radiant choral piece for the National Youth Choir of Great Britain that could stand alone, son without lumiere.'

The Observer (Fiona Maddocks), 22 July 2018

Five Telegrams, Anna Meredith’s extraordinary collaboration with the film company 59 Productions has opened the 2018 BBC Proms to enormous acclaim.
 
The 24-minute work for choir and orchestra launched in the Royal Albert Hall on 13 July with Sakari Oramo conducting the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, BBC Proms Youth Ensemble and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Accompanied by mesmeric digital projections onto both the outside and inside of the building, Five Telegrams is both a sonic and visual feast and was broadcast live on BBC 2 TV and BBC Radio 3.
 
The work draws on communications sent by young soldiers in 1918 and was jointly commissioned by the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh International Festival and 14-18 NOW, it opens the Edinburgh Festival on 3 August, with visuals projected onto the Usher Hall.

View the whole piece on BBC iPlayer here.

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