RIAM Chamber Orchestra

Led and directed by RIAM’s dynamic Head of Strings, Diane Daly, the RIAMCO brings a freshness and vibrancy to the repertoire, incorporating elements of memorisation, movement, improvisation, lighting and creative expression to enhance audience and performer experiences alike, making their performances “must-see” events.  

Their November concert opens with the joyous and energetic Juba from Florence Price’s String Quartet No. 2 arranged for strings. Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen was written in the closing years of World War II, as the composer was mourning the fact that “2000 years of cultural evolution had met its doom, and irreplaceable monuments of architecture and works of art were destroyed.” His stirring epitaph to German culture, in which we hear the principal theme from the Marcia funebre from Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, is performed alongside his compatriot’s sublime Cavatina arranged for strings.

The programme closes with a new arrangement for string orchestra of Rhiannon Giddens’ At the Purchaser’s Option. Her original song is a response to a 19th-century advertisement she saw in which a young woman was offered for sale with her nine-month-old baby ‘at the purchaser’s option’. This new arrangement, by Boris Hunka, features eight intertwining lines, and reflects the roots infused passion and anger of Giddens’ original. The work will be performed from memory, and improvisation and movement will be used as a way to impactfully embody this powerful song.

Programme 

Florence Price: Juba for String Orchestra from Quartet No. 2  

Ludwig van Beethoven: Cavatina from String Quartet No. 13 in B flat Op. 130

Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen

Rhiannon Giddens: At the Purchaser’s Option