The Army of Generals, The British Paraorchestra, Charles Hazlewood

Following his critically acclaimed headlining appearance at Glastonbury Festival 2016 performing to over 20,000 people, Charles Hazlewood brings his mesmerising project celebrating the life of David Bowie to concert halls in the UK this December.

Few can argue that two of Bowie’s finest moments were his Heroes and Low albums. It therefore feels totally appropriate to plunge deep back into his back catalogue and present these two albums, re-expressed and reasserted by the great Philip Glass, an artist whom Bowie cited as a massive influence on his own work.

The Heroes symphony (composed 1996) and Low symphony (1992) both use key elements key elements from Bowie (and Eno’s) seminal albums from the mid 70s. During that period David and Brian were attempting to extend the normal definition of pop and rock and roll. In a series of innovative recordings in which influences of world music, experimental ‘avant-garde’ are felt, they were re-defining the language of music in ways that can be heard even today. Glass achieved something of a real collaboration between his music and theirs, treating the themes of the albums very much as if they were his own and allowing their transformations to follow his own compositional technique.

This intense yet celebratory symphonic journey, conducted by the award-winning Charles Hazlewood with a 42-piece orchestra, takes the musical essence of Bowie’s Heroes and Low albums and re-expresses them through Glass’s un-mistakable and hypnotic brand of alchemy to produce a night of reflection and wonder.