If you will excuse the promotional nature of this post, I hoped it would be
of interest to the list.

New music group e2K will be performing the third of their _music-links_
series in Blackheath Halls on May 18th.  Pre-concert discussion at 7:15
between Martyn Harry and Charles Wilson of the New Grove Dictionary,
concert begins at 8pm.  Box office:  (London) 020 8463 0100.

Programme:

David Lang              Hammer Amour (European premiere)
John Adams              Chamber Symphony
Martyn Harry            Fantasy Unbuttoned
Michael Daugherty       Dead Elvis

The ensemble has been in existence for just under a year and is
particularly committed to nurturing new British music.  We have so far
performed Robin Holloway's _Winter Music_, Peter Maxwell Davies' _Seven In
nomine_, the world premiere of David Lewiston Sharpe's _A Salvador Dali
Suite_, Michael Zev Gordon's _Gravity and Grace IV_ and Philip Cashian's
_Chamber Concerto_ (as featured on NMC's recent release).  As well as
receiving recommendations from both the Guardian and the Telegraph, e2K
has been praised by Blackheath Halls as 'a magnificent taste of the
contemporary'.

The concert in May will showcase a work by the young and upcoming British
composer Martyn Harry.  Recently appointed Northern Composer-in-Residence,
Harry's work has been performed all over the world by ensembles as varied
as the London Sinfonietta and Eos.  He is currently working on an opera for
Broomhill Opera on the subject of the National Lottery and has received a
commission from the Northern Sinfonia.

e2K will be performing Harry's _Fantasy Unbuttoned_.  The work is a dark
and wild carnival, its power all the more powerful for being contained in
a sonata-rondo form.  Alluding to both Beethoven and Schumann, Harry's
piece is an enthralling and exciting musical journey.

The other major work in the concert is John Adams' _Chamber Symphony_,
which is one of his most engaging and enjoyable works, stemming as it does
from a mixture of Schoenberg's eponymous work and the music of cartoons.
Framing the Harry and Adams are the European premiere of David Lang's
fierce _Hammer Amour_ and Michael Daugherty's wonderfully eclectic hommage
to Elvis Presley in _Dead Elvis_.

The evening will begin with a pre-concert discussion between Martyn Harry
and Charles Wilson of the New Grove Dictionary at 7:15.  The concert will
begin at 8pm.

I would be pleased to see as many of you as possible there.  I know from
reading the list that there are a great many curious people out there, and
I am sure you would greatly enjoy this concert!

Robin Newton
Music Director, e2K