Music of Today: Anna Clyne Curates by Montgomery, Jessie, Shaw, C., Prestini, P., Clyne, De (2022/2022), SBC Purcell Room, London, United Kingdom

Anna Clyne, the Philharmonia’s Featured Composer, curates a free evening of chamber music by some of the most engaging composers working today. Snatches of folk-inflected melody swirl and dance through Strum by New York composer Jessie Montgomery. Caroline Shaw, eclectic musician and youngest ever recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, describes her Punctum as “an exercise in nostalgia”. Paula Prestini’s G-force, dedicated to the memory of a friend and “a life fully lived”, combines the traditional textures of a string quartet with the otherworldly sound of the vibraphone. And a clarinet joins the string quartet in the first UK performance of Clyne’s own Strange Loops, co-commissioned by the Philharmonia.