Brown Orchestra Premieres Piece Based on Shakespeare’s Life

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Friday, March 04, 2011

Leah Michaels, GoLocalProv Contributor

If you’ve never heard of “Mr. W.S.” by Anthony Burgess, it may be because it has never been performed in Rhode Island since it was written in 1979. This weekend, the Brown University Orchestra will be changing that when it plays the ballet for orchestra during its winter program this weekend.

Anthony Burgess, of A Clockwork Orange fame, wrote the piece as the music for a ballet on the life of Shakespeare based on Burgess’ novel Nothing Like the Sun. The world premiere of the piece with accompanying ballet dance was performed last November in Paris with an orchestra conducted by Paul Phillips, the conductor of the Brown Orchestra.

The orchestra will also be playing “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas (made famous by the Disney film Fantasia) and “Pictures at an Exhibition,” written by Modest Mussgorsky and arranged by Maurice Ravel.

Conductor Paul Phillips central in Burgess' music

“All three works on tonight's program are musical renderings of stories or images – orchestral representations of a poem describing a naughty young sorcerer-to-be, a fictionalized account of Shakespeare's life, and a series of paintings by the Russian artist Victor Hartmann,” said Phillips. Citing a strong interest in Burgess’ music, he continued, “This winter my new book about him, titled A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess was published, and to celebrate the publication, I decided to program "Mr. W.S.", which is one of Burgess's best pieces and has only been performed once before in the US.”

The concerts are taking place at 8 PM on Friday, March 4 and Saturday, March 5 at Sayles Hall, 79-81 Waterman St. on the Brown University campus. Tickets will be available at the door one hour prior to the show and cost $3 for Brown and RISD ID holders and $10 for the general public.