Performers

Anthony McGill

clarinet

Britten Sinfonia

Programme

Jessie Montgomery

Starburst

Panel discussion with Anthony McGill and Anthony Davis

Anthony Davis

You Have the Right to Remain Silent (European premiere)

George Walker

Lyric for Strings

From becoming the first African American musician to hold a principal role in the New York Philharmonic to performing at Obama’s inauguration, Anthony McGill has blazed a trail as one of classical music’s most brilliantly multifaceted figures.

In conversation with composer Anthony Davis, McGill explores the piece at the heart of this programme: Davis’s clarinet concerto, You Have the Right to Remain Silent. This work stems from the moment Davis was pulled over at gunpoint by a police officer during the 1970s, over 40 years before he won the Pulitzer Prize. In his powerful musical response, ‘the orchestra is interrogating the clarinet’.

The programme curated by McGill and Davis also features Jessie Montgomery’s music – infused with improvisation, energy and gleaming colours – and closes with a deeply poignant elegy by George Walker.