Seaton Music’s 76th Classical Season Concert

“Elemental” is an encounter between the geological, the celestial, and the monumental. Stephen Beville’s Shards and Shimmers — his largest piano work to date — draws on geological imagery: rocks, erosion, and the slow transformation of matter over time. In eight substantial movements, the work moves from jagged brilliance to moments of stillness, mirroring the processes of nature.

Diana Burrell’s Constellations I & II turn the listener’s gaze upward. Patterns emerge and dissolve like stars in the night sky, each movement a mapping of musical space.

The programme culminates in Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata — a work of sheer scale and intensity. Its vast first movement, lyrical slow movement, and fugal finale are the compositional equivalent of natural forces: unyielding, expansive, and awe-inspiring. The juxtaposition of Beville’s contemporary geological soundscape, Burrell’s astral cartography, and Beethoven’s architectural might creates a concert of rare breadth and depth.

Pianist and composer, Stephen Beville  and acclaimed in 2010 as ‘one of the most talented young musicians to emerge from the UK’ (Frankfurter Neue Press), Beville began to compose and study the piano at the age of eleven. As a pianist, he has performed throughout Britain and Germany, and has made recordings and given interviews for SWR (Southwest German) radio. Beville has performed at festivals including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the ‘Glories of the Keyboard’, and ‘American Reflections’ festivals at the Royal Northern College of Music and the London New Wind Festival.

Programme:

Stephen Beville – Shards and Shimmers (World Premiere and Seaton Music commission.)
Diana Burrell – Constellations I & II 
Beethoven – Sonata in B-flat major, Op. 106, “Hammerklavier”

Tickets: £17.50
Free for under 19s and full-time students.
Season Tickets available.