Psappha

Gordon Crosse: L'enfant sauvage (world première)*
Stravinsky: Soldier’s Tale (concert performance)**
Sayyid Shafiee: New work (world première)
Tom Jarvis: New work (world première)

Pictures and stories come in dazzling solos and bright ensembles. Wildboy, with a clarinet skirling as the untamed creature also portrayed in Truffaut’s film The Wild Child, was one of the younger Gordon Grosse’s most startling achievements. More than three decades later he offers a new version, L'enfant sauvage, undimmed. A different character – a simple soldier who makes a bargain with the devil and lives to regret it – figures in Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale, with its earthy music relating to Bach and ragtime. Pieces by advanced composition students complete the programme.