Jonathan Harvey: (b1939) Bird Concerto with Pianosong Hidéki Nagano, piano ~ Gareth Hulse, oboe Paul Archibald, trumpet ~ Tim Gill, cello Sound Intermedia, electronics London Sinfonietta ~ David Atherton, conductor NMC D177 • Jonathan Harvey won a Gramophone Award in 2008 for his NMC CD Body Mandala.   The works, commissioned by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, explore his fascination with Eastern philosophies. • The BBC Symphony Orchestra celebrates the life and work of Jonathan Harvey in two days of concerts, films and talks at the Barbican, London.   Total Immersion ran from the 28-29 January 2012. • Harvey's Bhakti was the first release on NMC in 1989. • Jonathan was invited by Pierre Boulez to work at IRCAM in the early 1980s. • This is the first recording in our London Sinfonietta Series, a new collaboration with one of the world's elite contemporary music ensembles. Bird Concerto – Harvey's hommage to Messiaen – is a celebration of the kind of technical advances in electroacoustics which the creator of Oiseaux exotiques and the Catalogue d'oiseaux was never able to explore.   Harvey started writing the piece when he was in California and says that “indigo bunting, orchard oriole, golden crowned sparrow … are some of the forty colourful Californian birds whose songs and cries sparked the ignition of this work.”   The bird sounds have been innovatively transformed to create a mesmeric dialogue between nature and art.   Harvey sets the piano soloist (the work was commissioned by pianist Joanna MacGregor) the challenge of combining piano playing and triggering a sampler/synthesizer so that the live electronics can be realised in real-time performance. Other works on this disc are Other Presences, for trumpet and multi-loop effects, and two versions of the canonic Ricercare una melodia (1984) originally written for trumpet and quadraphonic tape-delay system, but here performed on oboe and cello, with live electronics from Sound Intermedia. TRACK LISTING 1. Bird Concerto with Pianosong     30'39     Hidéki Nagano, piano; David Atherton, conductor London Sinfonietta     Recorded live at the Warsaw Autumn Festival 2009 by Polish National Radio 2. Ricercare una melodia for oboe     5'24     Gareth Hulse, oboe; Sound Intermedia, live electronics     Recorded live by BBC Radio 3 3. Other Presences     11'07     Paul Archibald, trumpet; Sound Intermedia, live electronics     Recorded live by BBC Radio 3 4. Ricercare una melodia for cello     6'51     Tim Gill cello; Sound Intermedia, live electronics     Recorded live by BBC Radio 3 NMC Recordings are distributed in Australia by Rockian Trading, P.O.Box 44, Briar Hill, Vic, 3088, Australia Telephone (03) 9432 4149 ~ Facsimile (03) 9444 6879