John Adams: Harmonium, Brighton Dome Concert Hall, May 7 (From The Argus)

John Adams: Harmonium, Brighton Dome Concert Hall, May 7

9:26am Friday 1st May 2009 in Music By Duncan Hall

A pair of selections from New England composer John Adams’s early 1980s work is joined by a UK premiere drawing on the work of another famous American writer.

John Adams’s joyful fanfare Short Ride In A Fast Machine will open the programme, before the first British performance of Tarik O’Regan’s The Ecstacies Above. The piece, by the Grammy-nominated British composer reworks Edgar Allen Poe’s poem Israfel using two choirs and a string quartet.

The second half of the performance is dedicated to the work which helped establish John Adams’s name in America’s musical landscape, the choral epic Harmonium, which according to its composer was born out a desire to “push the minimalism envelope”.

• Starts 8pm, tickets from £10. Call 01273 709709.