BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus 2024-25 Barbican Season Total Immersion: Pierre Boulez - Pli selon pli

The BBC Symphony Orchestra’s day-long deep-dive into the life and work of Pierre Boulez reaches a truly monumental climax. Across an evening that spans his whole creative career, pianist Tamara Stefanovich plays the brilliant Notations and Incises, and the BBC Singers join the BBC SO to perform the extraordinary, playful Cummings ist der Dichter.

And then Martyn Brabbins joins soprano Anna Dennis and an expanded BBC Symphony Orchestra for a rare complete performance of Boulez’s single largest work, Pli selon Pli. Part Mallarmé song cycle, part self-portrait and part era-defining manifesto for the possibilities of musical modernism, every performance is a major occasion. Boulez himself recorded it with the BBC Symphony Orchestra – making it the perfect way for the orchestra to salute the 100th birthday of its most revolutionary chief conductor.