What has happened to violin concertos? I can’t keep up. In December 2022 I caught the premiere of Deborah Pritchard’s Calandra at the Barbican, and as a fairly assiduous follower of the London concert scene, I think that was my eighth new concerto of the year, which began with Leonidas Kavakos giving the first performance of Unsuk Chin’s Shards of Silence.
This year looks no different. March 2023 is scheduled to bring a new concerto by Toshio Hosokawa to Berlin. In April, Johan Dalene will introduce a piece written for him and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic by Tebogo Monnakgotla, which should win a prize for something, just on the strength of its title: Globe Skimmer Surfing the Somali Jet.