This week at BBC NOW HQ we have been preparing for our two concerts that will be part of the 2013 Vale of Glamorgan Festival.
Running from 9-18 May, this year's festival will include four world premieres and, among other themes, will celebrate the 50th birthday of British composer Graham Fitkin and the music of American composer Sebastian Currier.
Our first concert (Wednesday 15 May) includes three premieres. Not bad going for one concert. On this occasion, the orchestra will be conducted by composer Richard Baker.
We begin with Sebastian Currier's Microsymph, here receiving its UK premiere. This work is exactly as described by its title - a micro symphony. I like this work; I think it is full of humour, and although unmistakably modern, there is enough for the listeners' ear to latch onto that also makes this work very accessible.
It's rather fun to play – it's quite cheeky and playful, and something I'd like to see on a programme again.
Following this, we will give the world concert premiere of our resident composer Mark Bowden's Heartland. Regular readers will be aware that this is a dual purpose work, and was conceived alongside Virtual Descent by National Dance Company of Wales' House Choreographer Eleesha Drennan.
We recorded the work before Christmas, and the NDCW have been touring it extensively across the UK and Ireland over the last number of months. However, the work, in its Heartland guise, can also stand on its own as a concert work, and we will be joined by percussionist Julian Warburton for its premiere.
Returning to the music of Sebastian Currier, we give the European premiere of Quantas, a work directly inspired by the composer's visit to China last year. In it he explores the inscrutable nature of Chinese lettering, and the patterns that you begin to see in it, even though you cannot wholly grasp its meaning.
I can sympathise with this, having played what was essentially a game of pictionary in the Beijing metro as I tried to find my way back to the orchestra's hotel during the orchestra's 2012 China Tour.
Regular attenders of our concerts may remember the portrait concert of Qigang Chen last season. In it we performed a selection of his works, including one that featured voices of the Beijing Opera.
It was a real revelation to me - something so incredibly exotic, but so beautiful. I'm delighted that we are performing his Enchantements Oubliés in this concert. It continues the percussion theme of the evening's concert, and features really beautiful string parts.
Of particular note, I feel, is the section that involves a multitude of tuned percussion playing very intricate, fast moving passage work, over a bed of lush strings.
Chen's music somehow captures the flavour of the East whilst combining it with the orchestral sounds of the West without sounding in any way twee. I hope we will see more of his works programmed in the future.
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales performed in BBC Hoddinott Hall on Wednesday 15 May and on Saturday 18 May as part of the Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music.
