© Kaapo Kamu; © Patrick Allen

London Chamber Orchestra perform the world premiere of Freya Waley-Cohen’s Pocket Cosmos directed by Pekka Kuusisto

10/6/2022

The London Chamber Orchestra perform the world premiere of Freya Waley-Cohen​’s piece Pocket Cosmos at St John’s Smith Square on 21 June directed by Pekka Kuusisto. It was commissioned by the London Chamber Orchestra and will conclude Waley-Cohen’s year as LCO’s Composer in Residence.

Alongside Pocket Cosmos, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.5 opens the concert, with Haydn’s Symphony No.88 triumphantly concluding.

“The quote which sums up [‘Pocket Cosmos’] mostly clearly is from Ursula K Le Guin, who said ​‘I guess I’m trying to subjectify the universe, because look where objectifying it has gotten us’. It’s a piece that starts off in the objectivity of the image of a pocket cosmos and all of its shifting perspectives, and hurtles towards the subjective.⁠
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The title comes from the line in Rebecca Tamás’ Spell For Reality: ​‘the entire pocket cosmos shifting and flapping’. It’s a poem that uses images of earthly rhythms to explore mystical experience.”

Freya Waley-Cohen