BBC Four is to team up with the Southbank Centre for a year-long classical music festival called ‘The Rest is Noise’.
Curated by the Southbank Centre’s artistic director, Jude Kelly, the festival is to be a chronological exploration of 20th-century music and takes its name from music critic Alex Ross’s book on 20th-century musical history.
The festival will comprise nearly 100 events including talks, films and performances, and will open in January 2013 with an all-Strauss concert from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. Other highlights of the festival include performances of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius conducted by Sir Mark Elder, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.
The festival will also be linked to a new television series about 20th-century music to be broadcast on BBC Four, with accompanying programmes to go out on Radio 3 as well.
Richard Klein, controller of BBC Four said: ‘The 20th century divides classical music lovers like no other and there’s no more thrilling way of discovering what the last 100 years brought us, than by listening to its music, in all its rich, vibrant, challenging and melodic glories.’
Kelly herself expressed a hope that ‘the Festival will reveal why individual composers were compelled to create the music they did.’
Southbank Centre’s 'The Rest is Noise' festival opens in January 2013.
Elizabeth Davis