BBC Symphony Orchestra with Davóne Tines

Live from the Barbican Hall, London.

2020 may prove pivotal in our collective journey towards racial justice. But in his ‘devised work' Concerto No.1: SERMON, Davóne Tines warns against complacency. The American bass-baritone weaves readings of texts by African American writers James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and jessica Care moore around arias by John Adams, Anthony Davis and by Tines and Igee Dieudonné. A post-2020 wake-up-call about discovering your potential, exhibiting your humanity and indicting your naysayers. The work contains racist language in reflecting its themes of inequality and injustice.

And there's more music that reflects the shared human experience. Started just months after the composer first docked in America, Dvořak’s much-loved ‘New World’ Symphony was composed ‘in the spirit’ of the nation’s own songs and spirituals. The BBC Symphony Orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor opens her concert with Anna Thorvaldsdóttir’s hypnotic orchestral canvas Dreaming – an image of the orchestra as a living organism twisting through a kaleidoscope of colour and light.

Presented by Martin Handley

Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Dreaming

Various (devised by Davóne Tines) Concerto No 1: SERMON – A Devised Concerto for Voice and Orchestra featuring:
John Adams 'Shake the Heavens' from El Niño
Igee Dieudonné and Davóne Tines Vigil (arr Matthew Aucoin)
Anthony Davis 'Malcolm's Aria' from X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X

8.15pm
Interval

8.35pm
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 in E Minor "From the New World"

Davóne Tines (bass-baritone)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Dalia Stasevska (conductor)

Photo (c) Bowie Verschuuren