FAREWELL TO…
Frederic Rzewski Born 1938 Composer, pianist
Passion, anger and the unexpected: three things you’ll find in the music of Frederic Rzewski, who made an impact at the keyboard in 1976 with The People United Will Never Be Defeated! That epic set of variations on a Chilean resistance anthem, his most familiar work, is a prime example of how world events and politics seeped into his art. An Ivy League education (Harvard and Princeton) was topped up in Italy, where he studied with Dallapiccola and started an electronic band. Back in the US, he hung out with Manhattan’s downtown music crowd before returning to Europe in the late 1970s. He settled in Belgium, teaching in Liège, and continued to write and perform. He played the premiere of his own Piano Concerto at the 2013 BBC Proms.
Jeanne Lamon Born 1949 Violinist
Being given a recorder by her parents left sixyear-old Jeanne Lamon (left) unimpressed; she had her heart set on a violin. Seeing Isaac Stern on television had inspired her to think big, and she followed her dream. Studies in Boston were followed by tuition in the Netherlands with the Concertgebouw’s Herman Krebbers. And it was in Europe that she fell in love with Baroque music. A guest spot with the recently formed Tafelmusik ensemble in Canada led to her being invited in 1981 to become its music director – a post she enjoyed for 33 years. With Tafelmusik, Lamon brought Baroque and early music to the masses through countless recordings and imaginative concerts. Passionate about inspiring new talent, she also taught at Toronto University and Canada’s Royal Conservatoire of Music.
Louis Andriessen Born 1939 Composer, pianist
Like Rzewski, Louis Andriessen was a composer who pushed artistic boundaries. Eschewing almost all the accepted conventions of classical music when he came to prominence in the 1960s and ’70s, he was part of a group of artists who were passionately against what they considered an inherent elitism in Dutch music-making. As such, his music, avantgarde and minimalist, blazed a trail and ultimately embedded itself in the national identity; indeed, Andriessen is considered one of the most important voices to emerge from the country in the latter half of the 20th century. Vocal works, pieces for small ensembles and a handful of operas occupied the composer, and it wasn’t until 2013 that he finally accepted an orchestral commission from the Concertgebouw. He studied with Berio in Milan and Berlin, and was a highly respected composition teacher whose pupils included Steve Martland and Richard Ayres.