After it was announced at the beginning of March that Toshio Hosokawa would receive the highly endowed Frontiers of Knowledge Award from the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Foundation, the second concert as part of his residency in València is awaited with particular interest.
The programme includes his Meditation to the victims of Tsunami (3.11) and
Toru Takemitsu's Archipelago S. besides the melodrama Futari Shizuka (The Maiden from the Sea). The piece was premiered in 2017 with the Ensemble intercontemporain at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Kölner Philharmonie with subsequent performances at the University of Toronto, at the TTIMF Festival in Tongyeong/Korea, with the Talea Ensemble in New York and at the Suntory Hall Summer Festival 2021.
In all these performances, Shizu has been played by the Noh singer and dancer Ryoko Aoki, for whom the role is tailor-made. Soprano Christina Daletska can be heard in the role of Helen in València. The Orquesta de València will perform under the direction of its chief conductor Alexander Liebreich.
For Futari Shizuka, Oriza Hirata reworked the classical Nō play of the same name into a new libretto. The spirit of Shizuka Gozen takes possession of the body and soul of a young refugee girl who sings of her pain over war and hatred on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Palau de la Música
