On May 26, 2021 Joseph Horovitz celebrates his 95th birthday with several concerts programmed over the next few months.
On May 17 clarinetist Michael Collins & pianist Michael McHale perform Horovitz’s Clarinet Sonatina at Wigmore Hall, London. Horovitz’s Sonatina has become an established piece in the clarinet repertoire, performed and recorded world-wide.
String Quartet No. 5 will have two performances, firstly on May 24 by Solem Quartet at New College, Oxford where Horovitz was a former member and then May 26 by Aron Quartet and featured on the Austrian Radio 1 Concert.
On May 26 at Alte Schmiede, Vienna clarinetist Lila Scharang and pianist Mennan Bërveniku perform Clarinet Sonatina.
Three performances of Jazz Concerto by virtuoso harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani & Manchester Collective on May 14, 18, 21.
On May 29 Lady Macbeth will be performed at English Music Festival, Horsham by singer Lucy Stevens and pianist Elizabeth Marcus. The scenes from Macbeth Acts 1, 2 and 5, form a miniature operatic role, portraying the development of the character from early aspirations to grandeur, to later power and finally to guilt and madness.
Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo will be presented on June 26 at St Giles Cripplegate, London by The City of London Choir. This work received the PRS Ivor Novello Award for the best British work for children in 1976 and has become a favourite for choirs of all ages.
Joseph Horovitz Biography
Born in Vienna in 1926 Joseph emigrated to England in 1938. Since 1961 he has taught at the Royal College of Music, where he became a Fellow in 1981. He has won two Ivor Novello Awards and in 1996 he was awarded the Gold Order of Merit of the City of Vienna, and in 2007 the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art First Class. The Worshipful Company of Musicians awarded him the Cobbett Medal in 2008 for services to chamber music. In 2017 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music of the Royal College of Music, London.
Joseph Horovitz has composed twelve ballets, nine concertos, two one-act operas, chamber music, works for brass and wind bands, film, television and radio, and choral works - most famously Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo.