New Music
New Music Commissions and Performances
‘The Man Hurdy-gurdy and Me’
Sirinu was chosen to perform at the opening of the National Centre for Early Music in York. Their specially commissioned programme of new pieces for early instruments included an Arts Council Commission for Christopher Fox’s Notes from a Cold Front and was the inspiration for their recordings of new music on Métier and on Tremula Records. Sirinu was also chosen to perform Howard Skempton’s ‘The Man Hurdy-gurdy and Me’ for an Arts Council Funded Tour `In the Day of the Comet’, which took place at Penninsular Arts, Plymouth University. They were awarded RVWFoundation funding to commission a new piece from Robert Keeley and to record new music for early instruments by Keeley, Graham Fitkin, Christopher Fox and Jenni Pinnock on the Tremula label.
Sirinu with Howard Skempton
Sirinu’s Matthew Spring gave the first continental performance of Howard Skempton’s Hurdy-gurdy and Percussion Concerto at the Musica Viva Festival in Munich with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
​
Sirinu’s own quintet ensemble version of this concerto and of Skempton’s Concerto for Accordion and Oboe were given their first performance in the Michael Tippet Centre, Bath. Both concertos are featured on the Mètier recording The Man Hurdy-gurdy and Me, (music for early and unusual instruments by Howard Skempton).
They have given premieres of new works by Douglas Young (1998, rev. 2002), Graham Fitkin (2010, Rainbow over Bath Commission), Jenni Pinnock (2018), Andrew Hugill (2023), Christopher Fox (2000) and Robert Keeley (RVWF Commission 2024).