Breathing Space: Adès Conducts Sibelius’s “The Tempest” | Adella

SIBELIUS Prelude and Suite No. 1 from “The Tempest” SIBELIUS Six Humoresques THOMAS ADÈS Märchentänze THOMAS ADÈS Five Spells from “The Tempest” [US Premiere; TCO Co-commission] Immerse yourself in the creative world of Thomas Adès, as we visit the celebrated artist in his sunny Los Angeles studio, the seedbed for his ground-breaking work. He delves into the pieces he programmed for his Cleveland Orchestra conducting debut, which features two musical interpretations of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” — one by Sibelius and the other by Adès himself in its US premiere. He also introduces us to the artistry of his longtime collaborator, Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, who brings his effortless mastery to Sibelius’s folk-tinged “Six Humoresques” and Adès’s own “Märchentänze”, a similarly folk music-infused piece. In the studio, with sheet music for work-in-progress creations affixed on its walls, Adès reveals his “pot of future pieces,” muses on seemingly longer, more fertile days in Los Angeles, and reflects on the artistic necessity of keeping nature close at hand. He also shares his view of Jean Sibelius, a boundary-pushing composer perpetually on the edge. The Cleveland Orchestra Thomas Adès, conductor  Pekka Kuusisto, violin