The first bar of an outrage

On Friday 10 May, the BBC Symphony Orchestra opens a weekend curated by America's star young composer Nico Muhly: A Scream and an Outrage, at the Barbican.

Muhly’s latest composition, Outrage, is given its world premiere by the BBC Singers. Written for unaccompanied voices, it was commissioned and written specially for the group.

Nico Muhly has kindly agreed to give us access to his creative process: he has just sent the first bar of the piece, with this message: 'The first bar! Introduces the drones, sets a severe, old-testament kind of mood …' – together with an excerpt from the lyrics (from Proverbs 27:4) and some more notes.

Also in the concert, the BBC SO is joined by Brooklyn-based innovators So Percussion for David Lang’s 'man made'. This new percussion concerto by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer here receives its world premiere.

The second half features the European premiere concert performance of Italian-American composer Paola Prestini’s new multimedia opera, Oceanic Verses.

Paola Prestini, named by National Public Radio as one of the Top 100 composers in the world under 40, sets her new music around folkloric fragments and improvisation. Oceanic Verses tells of fading civilisations through a series of tableaux featuring lost songs, rituals and ethnic dialects from the Salento and Sardinian regions of Italy. A film by Ali Hossaini is projected throughout the performance, immersing the opera’s players and audience in the folkloric landscape that inspired the piece.

Three amplified soloists and a choir perform texts by Donna di Novelli, alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by American conductor Jayce Ogren.

Find full details of the concert

Visit the Barbican's A Scream and an Outrage microsite