New work for Arditti Quartet

I’m honoured to have been commissioned by the Hepner Foundation to write a piece for the Arditti Quartet, to be performed at a special concert in memory of Leo Hepner.

Leo was a German chemical engineer/biotechnologist and amateur violist. He formed the Hepner Foundation to support contemporary music in the UK and Europe, and together with his wife Regina Hepner-Neupert set up a summer academy in Switzerland where composers would work with the Arditti Quartet. They supported a huge number of composers, ensembles and festivals, and in 2012 helped me during my first year studying with George Benjamin in London. Having fled Nazi Germany with his parents as a child, he was awarded Germany’s Israel Jacobson Preis of the Union of Progressive Jews for his advocacy of Liberal Judaism. Leo sadly died in London in November 2015, and I was so touched to be asked by Regina to write a piece for his memorial concert.

The concert will take place on the 29th May 2018 at the Southbank Centre‘s Purcell Room. Also writing new pieces in memory of Leo are Brian Ferneyhough, Charlotte Bray; and Milica Djordjević, all of whom had worked with or been supported by the Hepner Foundation in the past. Details and tickets at the Southbank website