Gavin Higgins: What Wild Ecstasy [Live]

Rambert Dance Company is reviving Rambert’s version of Nijinsky’s ballet L'Après-midi d'un Faune in  its centenary year, alongside the world premiere of What Wild Ecstasy. Choreographed by Mark Baldwin, this new work by Rambert’s inaugural Music Fellow Gavin Higgins, is a contemporary response to Debussy’s ground-breaking music, taking its original harmonic palette as its starting point. Where as L'Après-midi d'un Faune centres on the idea of sexual fantasy, What Wild Ecstasy will take on a far more aggressive character, exploring the base and animalistic side of the Faun.

New Music 20x12 is the brainchild of Jillian Barker and David Cohen who wanted to put new music at the heart of the Olympic celebrations in 2012. It is delivered by PRS for Music in partnership with BBC Radio 3, London 20x12 and NMC Recordings. 

20 outstanding new works, each lasting 12 minutes, commissioned to feature centre stage of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. New Music 20x12 is a UK-wide commissioning programme consisting of twenty new pieces of music, each of 12 minutes in length, celebrating the talent and imagination of the UK’s musical community as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Rambert Orchestra
Paul Hoskins conductor

AUDIO

REVIEWS

'…blasting, warping score drives the choreography.' The Guardian

FUNDERS

New Music 20x12 Partners

Special thanks to the Finzi Trust and the Bliss Trust for making this New Music 20x12 commission possible.

RECORDING CREDITS

This performance of What Wild Ecstasy was recorded by the BBC on 28 June 2012, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 21 July 2012.

Catalogue number: NMC DL201216
Release Date: 28 August 2012