Michael Nyman plays The Royal Albert Hall

To celebrate the year's two big Baroque anniversaries – and his own 65th birthday – the Michael Nyman Band makes its Proms debut with a new work echoing the Purcell and Handel pieces heard in Prom 53.



Best known for his soundtracks to such movies as The Piano, Gattaca and Wonderland, Michael Nyman started out as a musicologist, editing scores by Handel and Purcell; as a critic he coined the term 'Minimalism'; and, as a composer he first made his name by putting the music of classical masters through the Minimalist mill to generate raunchy, rhythmically propulsive, raucously energetic new works, such as his score for Peter Greenaway's 1982 film The Draughtsman’s Contract and the grief-frozen Memorial, (which featured in Greenaway's later The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover) – both of which are Purcell-based.

The Draughtsman’s Contract – selection 23’
The Musicologist Scores c20’
BBC commission: world premiere
Six Celan Songs – Blume; Psalm 10’
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover – Memorial 12’

PROM 54: MICHAEL NYMAN
Tuesday 25 August 2009 - 10:15 PM
Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore
London, SW7

Philip Glass: An Evening of Chamber Music

An intimate chamber concert with acclaimed composer/ pianist with new material never heard in the UK.

Philip Glass is one of the world's most popular living composers, acclaimed for his stunning soundtracks and ground-breaking operas, but in this concert, there's an intense focus on Glass himself, as a pianist and composer.

The Guardian wrote "Glass's restrained but haunting playing really is a joy", and the concert features part of his great solo piano cycles Metamorphosis and Etudes. He's joined by Wendy Sutter on cello and percussionist Mick Rossi to play music from Glassworks and Naqoyqatsi, the final film in the legendary Godfrey Reggio trilogy that began with Koyaanisqatsi.

Most of this programme has never been played in Britain before, and its centrepiece is Songs and Poems, a new work for Wendy Sutter.