His other compositions include sonatas, variations and other works for piano, a violin concerto (dedicated to Jane Manning), songs (amongst them settings of Rabindranath Tagore, Hinton's Opp. 9 and 12), works for the organ, a string quintet (for two violins, viola, cello, double-bass and soprano, and lasting for 2 hrs 45 mins in performance), and a Sinfonietta.
Besides his job in Apocalyptica he used to work as a musician in a Tapiola Sinfonietta Avanti! and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and in the orchestra of the Finnish National Opera.
During his time with the London Sinfonietta he collaborated with a variety of composers, including Boulez, Stockhausen, Birtwistle, Henze, Maxwell Davies, Goehr and Berio.
Active as a guest conductor, Gharabekian had been the Principal Guest Conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, and appeared with the Sinfonietta München.
He nonetheless continued to make recordings, such as Ernesto Hallfter's Sinfonietta, De Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain with Gonzalo Soriano, work with the OSR, and later in London, the stereo orchestral LP Espana, as well as the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Alfredo Campoli and Liszt concertos with Julius Katchen.
Works featured in recent seasons have included Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, Beethoven's Symphonies 6 and 7, Barber's Adagio for Strings, Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (narrated by the Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes), and Villa-Lobos' Sinfonietta No. 1.
The Sinfonietta works with conductors such as Stefan Asbury, Fabrice Bollon, Dennis R. Davies, Mark Fitz-Gerald, Jürg Henneberger, Peter Hirsch, Michael Hofstetter, Johannes Kalitzke, Karen Kamensek, Jun Märkl, Emilio Pomàrico, Kasper de Roo, Jonathan Stockhammer and Lothar Zagrosek.
In the recent past Amsterdam Sinfonietta has performed both in the Netherlands and abroad with soloists such as Murray Perahia, Thomas Hampson, Maxim Vengerov, Christianne Stotijn, Martin Frost and Gidon Kremer.
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The Bohemian Album is Thompson's most recent recording with Amsterdam Sinfonietta.
He has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras and conductors, including the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Opera Symphony Orchestra, Halle Orchestra (Rory Macdonald), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Petri Sakari), Tapiola Sinfonietta (Paavo Berglund), the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra (John Storgards) and the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel.
Three works were premiered in 2011 : “Night Rides” for the London Sinfonietta; “No Man’s Land”, to a text by Christopher Reid, for the City of London Sinfonia with soloists Ian Bostridge and Roderick Williams; and “Grand Barcarolle” for the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly as part of their Beethoven cycle presented in Leipzig, Vienna, Paris and London in autumn 2011.
As a soloist he has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Orchestra of St. Johns Smith Square and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and is an active chamber music player and performs many recitals with James Pearson.
Besides composing a number of mass songs and film scores (notably for Erwin Piscator's Revolt of the Fishermen, 1934), he transcribed the Sinfonietta, originally for chamber orchestra, for an orchestra of domrï (plucked folk instruments).
Music critic William Russo wrote: "The Sinfonietta is one of the finest groups of musicians I have ever heard".
He has appeared with many distinguished orchestras and ensembles which include the Bayerische Rundfunk, BBC Symphony, Berlin Radio Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Paris, Het Residentie den Hague, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Asko Ensemble, Ensemble Contrechamps, London Sinfonietta, Nieuw Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Oslo Sinfonietta, Schoenberg Ensemble.
His wide-ranging repertoire, which spans Bach to Xenakis, has enabled him to lead such accomplished groups as the American Composers Orchestra, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Columbia Sinfonietta, Speculum Musicae, Cygnus Ensemble, the Fromm Players at Harvard University, the Composers' Ensemble at Princeton University, and the New York Philharmonic chamber music series.
BBC Symphony Orchestra - London Sinfonietta - Gareth Hulse (oboe) - Paul Silverthorne (viola) - Hans-Ola Ericsson (organ)
Among these are works like Amatzinac for flute and string quartet (1935); his Symphony (1944); Sinfonietta (1945); Homenaje a Cervantes for two oboes and string orchestra (1947); his opera La Mulata de Córdoba (1948); Tierra de Temporal (1949); Muros Verdes for piano solo (1951); Bosques (1954); and the ballet Tierra (1958).
Between 2006 and 2009, the London Sinfonietta Label in conjunction with the Jerwood Foundation and NMC Recordings released the Jerwood Series: 6 CDs featuring London Sinfonietta players' performances of new compositions by young composers, which include Richard Causton, Dai Fujikura, Ian Vine and Larry Goves.
He was a solorepetiro at La Monnaie (Brussels) and from 1988 to 1996 principal conductor of the Sinfonietta Tübingen, where he became known as a fine performer of contemporary music.
Siam Sinfonietta is a youth orchestra founded in 2010 by Thai/American composer Somtow Sucharitkul, Thai conductor Trisdee na Patalung, and the Bangkok Opera Foundation.