Durham Concerto onstage in Germany

Jon Lord’s Durham Concerto is set for its German premiere on May 19, 2015 in Hagen near Dortmund with the Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paul Mann.

[Update] The concert will feature Kathryn Tickell on Northumbrian pipes (as on the original recording and at Celebrating Jon Lord at the Royal Albert Hall last April), and will be the world premiere of the updated and revised edition of Durham Concerto as overseen by Paul Mann.

[Update2] Ralph Breitenbach will play the Hammond organ parts. He is a member of DCRS and has played keyboards with Jon at previous concerts in Hagen in 2008 and Essen in 2010.

First performed in 2007 and commissioned by the University of Durham, Durham Concerto is Jon’s aural portrait of an imaginary day spent in Durham in the North of England.

It consists of six segments in three overall movements:
Part 1: Morning
1 The Cathedral at Dawn
2 Durham Awakes
Part 2: Afternoon
3 The Road from Lindisfarne
4 From Prebends Bridge
Part 3: Evening
5 Rags and Galas
6 Durham Nocturne

This 3 minute collage was filmed at the world premiere in 2007:

Originally scheduled for July 2012, the concert would have concluded Jon’s stretch as the ‘composer in residence’ with the Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra in 2011. The orchestra has performed several of his pieces starting with Concerto for Group and Orchestra in 2008 and more recently a breath taking performance of From Darkness To Light, which was broadcast by German radio WDR3 in 2012. This evening’s programme will also include Haydn‘s Symphony No 92, also known as the Oxford Symphony, named after another great British university city. Tickets directly from Theater Hagen.