CLASSICAL& OPERA

The world premiere of Barry Guy's Fallingwater is at London's Barbican Hall on Sunday 13 October at 7.30pm

Few contemporary composers of "classical" music perform in their own works these days. The celebrated double-bass player, Barry Guy, who has recorded more than 40 albums with various jazz combinations over the years, has still found time to play in both the Academy of Ancient Music and the City of London Sinfonia.

Guy's concerto for orchestra, Fallingwater, was specially commissioned by the Sinfonia, with whom he has maintained a relationship for more than 20 years, and is a highlight of the final concert of the Sinfonia's 25th-anniversary weekend.

The direct source of inspiration is Frank Lloyd Wright's pioneering Modernist mansion of the 1930s, Fallingwater. Situated in Pennsylvania, it is built around local landscape features, including a stream and rocky outcrops, incorporating them into its structure.

In his concerto, Guy sets out to "mirror Wright's own unique synthesis of architecture and nature, where the angular concrete and wood of the building is compared and contrasted with the water and trees over and in which it is set. It is a concerto for orchestra and so each of the Sinfonia's sections - strings, woodwind, brass and percussion - has a chance to shine." As for his own participation? "I'm glad I'll be there playing with the orchestra for the last time in my own composition," he says of his swan-song performance with the Sinfonia. Now living in Eire, Guy plans to concentrate more on composition in the future. "Part of me would like to just sit back and listen, but maybe I can do that at a second airing, if and when that occurs."

The concert will also feature premieres of works by John Tavener and Diana Burrell.