Davies and Waley-Cohen Premieres Lead Aldeburgh
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- Colin Currie premiered Tansy Davies's percussion concerto Earth Works with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at Snape Maltings, deploying cymbals, cowbells, an "upturned dustbin" and a tiny gong over a monumental-scale orchestral texture.
- Conductor Kevin John Edusei led BBCNOW in a "no-holds-barred" Shostakovich Symphony No 10 — described as "blistering form even in the sauna conditions" at the Snape Maltings concert hall.
- Sansara choir premiered Alex Ho and Rockey Sun Keting's Chronicle, a meditative a cappella song-cycle about six female Chinese poets that blends English folk, Anglican choral tradition and Chinese idioms.
- The Sacconi Quartet performed Freya Waley-Cohen's Dances, Songs and Hymns for Friendship in Orford Church, with the players "revelling" in its exploration of how four musical voices intertwine, divide and coalesce.
- Tamsin Waley-Cohen gave the world premiere of her sister Freya's violin concerto The Dreamer with BBCNOW, featuring rhapsodic soaring passages, "fingers flying" runs and ethereal floating over whole-tone string beds.
- The BBCNOW residency closed with Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances under Edusei, whose tempos started steady, bloomed "voluptuously" and ended in an "almost painfully loud climax" capped by a vast gong crash.
Why it matters: Three world premieres — Davies's Earth Works for solo percussion, Waley-Cohen's The Dreamer written for her violinist sister Tamsin, and Ho and Sun Keting's Chronicle for Sansara — reinforce Aldeburgh's standing as a launchpad for new British composition, while BBCNOW's "blistering" Shostakovich 10 and Rachmaninov under Edusei mark a high-profile showcase for a conductor increasingly visible on the UK orchestral circuit.
