Mike Oldfield's ‘Hergest Ridge’ album, half a century later
The Opus One orchestra, the Quartet Brossa and invited musicians reinterpret songs by the artist to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of one of his best-known records.
There are moments in the history of recent music that mark a turning point and recordings that are a point of reference in certain musical scenes. If we are talking about symphonic rock, we have a good example in the music of Mike Oldfield in general and in the 1974 album Hergest Ridge in particular. These days marks the mid centenary of the recording and, at the Palau de la Música, they are celebrating it with a great concert on Monday, 18 November.
The protagonists will be artists you are sure to know if you like Mike Oldfield, as this is a full orchestra, the Opus One orchestra, conducted by Xavier Alern, created expressly to perform in symphonic format the sounds composed by the British artist. They are fourteen musicians who, on stage, perform Mike Oldfield's albums, which are celebrating important anniversaries these days. You may already remember that last year the group performed Tubular Bells 50 years later, and soon you will see them performing the 1975 album Ommadawn (1975) once again. These are three masterpieces of contemporary music that Opus One reinterprets ‘without anachronisms and with the utmost respect’, as they themselves say.
At the concert on 18 November, you will hear the orchestra reinterpreting the themes of Hergest Ridge (as well as other compositions by the author), accompanied, of course, by the Galician singer Rosa Cedrón (she was the voice, for nine years, of Luar na Lubre), the Barcelona-born singer with Brazilian and Andalusian roots Anna Luna, the soprano Laia Frigolé and the actor Xavi Lite.
They are accompanied by a local group with more than fifteen years of life that has always been characterised by the search for dialogue between different artistic disciplines and musical styles. We are talking about the Quartet Brossa, a group from Barcelona dedicated to bringing to the stage the most innovative and also the most dissident music.
If you don't want to miss the tribute to Hergest Ridge on the fiftieth anniversary of its recording, come to the Palau de la Música, but first check the website for information about the concert.