Fermata - Time Out to Talk Music: Param Vir

Broken Strings: Anatomy of an Opera

This illustrated talk shows the process by which an opera was developed from the ancient Jaatak story (former birth legend of the Buddha) and transformed into a work of contemporary music theatre. Param Vir offers an exposition of the themes and philosophical ideas immanent in the story, their distillation into a dramatic libretto, and the creation of harmonic and instrumental strategies that support the narrative line. Musical examples will be played along with projections of sketches and photographs of the original production.

Param Vir was born in Delhi, India. Vir's early work in composition aroused the interest of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies who invited him to the Dartington Summer School in 1983 on a scholarship and in 1984 he moved to London to study composition with Oliver Knussen. Within three years of his arrival in London Vir had won the Benjamin Britten Composition Prize (Aldeburgh), the Kucyna International Composition Prize (Boston), the Tippett Composition Award (Dartington) and the Performing Right Society Composition Prize (London). Horse Tooth White Rock, a large orchestral work based on the life of the eleventh century Tibetan saint Milarepa, was commissioned and first performed by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in 1994. Since then, it has been performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 2005 BBC Proms and by the Flanders Philharmonic at de Singel in Antwerp.

Param Vir's double bill Snatched by the Gods and Broken Strings is now established within the contemporary repertoire, performed by the Scottish Opera in Glasgow and Edinburgh (1998), the Berlin State Opera and Vienna (1999) and the Transparent Opera Company in Antwerp, Rotterdam and Rouen (2001). His first full length opera – Ion – was commissioned by Aldeburgh Almeida Opera and received its first performance at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2000.

Other notable works include Ultimate Words: Infinite Song, for baritone solo, percussion sextet and piano (commissioned by the 1997 Berlin Festival), The Theatre of Magical Being s (commissioned by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, 2003), Hayagriva (commissed by the Schönberg Ensemble and performed at Muziekgebouw aan’t I J in Amsterdam, 2005) and Between Earth and Sky, a major commission for the BBC Symphony Orchestra that was inspired by Anish Kapoor's sculpture, Cloud Gate. It was premiered, to much acclaim, on the 24th of November 2006 at the Hammersmith Town Hall, London.

Several new works were completed in the season 2008 - 2009, notably He Begins His Great Trance for the BBC Singers, Black Feather Rising, a 90 minute work of music-theatre for Stichting Octopus in the Netherlands, and A Spread of Dreams, a new work for the Orchestra of the Swan, conducted by David Curtis. New works in the pipeline include a major orchestral commission and a concerto for a classical Indian instrument and large mixed ensemble, both scheduled for 2012.

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