Celebrating Olly - a portrait of a friend

Celebrating Olly is a collection of pieces for cello written to celebrate what would have been 70th birthday of Oliver Knussen (1952-2018). The 18 pieces are written by Olly's composer friends to be played by his very close friend Anssi Karttunen. It is well known that Olly had a insatiable appetite for very surprising variety of music as well as very eclectic selection of friends. He was totally committed to both.

The first peformance of the cycle was - appropriately - at the Aldeburgh Festival on the 24th of June 2022 as part of the Oliver Knussen day, celebrating his 70th birthday.

Olly passed away suddenly in 2018 leaving his friends with a huge space to fill in our hearts. Now that few years have passed it is possible to remember the musician, magician, librarian - in essence, the worlds largest little boy.

This collection of pieces started spontaneously when Kaija Saariaho finished her Lullaby for Olly. Several other friends asked to join in with homages and before we knew around twenty of his best friends had joined to create an impressive cycle of solo cello pieces to celebrate one of the most immense musicians.

Celebrating Olly:

Julian Anderson Maisema (2020)

Charlotte Bray From the Innermost Places (2022)

Philip Cashian The Art of Memory (2021)

Tansy Davies gem (2022)

Detlev Glanert Little Letter for Olly (2021)

Jo Kondo A Song for the Owl (2021)

Brad Lubman For Anssi for OK (2021)

Zoe Martlew O-lude (2022)

Colin Matthews Three Fragments (2020)

Augusta Read Thomas Riddle (2022)and Dream Catcher (2022)

Poul Ruders Last Post - a tune for Olly (2021)