A new series of four works for solo horn by Brian Elias will have its first performance on July 4 at the Southbank Centre's Hayward Gallery. Commissioned by the Southbank Centre, Touching the Quick responds to particular artworks in the Anish Kapoor exhibition and to the spirit of the exhibition as a whole. Acclaimed soloist Ben Goldscheider will perform the piece live as he moves between the sculptures.
Direct engagement with the artworks through visits to Kapoor’s studio and conversations with the artist informed the composer’s deep awareness of ‘how alive, how quick the sculptures are, and of the many different kinds of movement present within them’. The music translates Elias’ personal impressions of Kapoor’s artworks, rendering them in musical shape and form. Elias and Kapoor collaborated previously with Echo (1995), a piece for five music boxes.
Touching the Quick also represents a continued collaboration between soloist and composer; at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2025, Goldscheider premiered Elias’ Horn Concerto (2023), hailed by critics as an “enjoyably complex labyrinth” and “altogether wonderful,” and a new short piece for horn and piano called Sometimes (2024).
