Popular Perception
Though well established and widely respected in the classical music world – modules on his music now feature in many university undergraduate music courses – Birtwistle was relatively unknown to the general public until the mid-1990s. Although he had been honoured with a knighthood in 1988, two events brought him to public attention.
A group of anti-modernist musicians, including composers Frederick Stocken and Keith Burstein calling themselves "The Hecklers," organised a demonstration for the first night of the 1994 revival of Gawain at the Royal Opera House, London. They attended the performance and at its conclusion broke into a tirade of catcalls as part of their campaign to rid contemporary music of anything post-Romantic. Their criticism turned a relatively unimportant revival into a controversial event that attracted greater interest than it otherwise might have.
Birtwistle gained notoriety in 1995 when Panic was premièred on a live BBC television broadcast, in a prominent and unusual setting, on the second half of the Last Night of the Proms, which traditionally features mainstream, popular and patriotic music.
He is a member of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA),
Read more about this topic: Harrison Birtwistle
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or perception:
“The poet will prevail to be popular in spite of his faults, and in spite of his beauties too. He will hit the nail on the head, and we shall not know the shape of his hammer. He makes us free of his hearth and heart, which is greater than to offer one the freedom of a city.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No one has ever seen a Republican mass meeting that was devoid of the perception of the ludicrous.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)