BBC NOW – NOW!
Thursday 19/2/26, 7.30pm
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
Isabella Gellis
Valedictionsworld premierec9’
Deborah Pritchard
Trombone Concerto, ‘Light Circle’ UK premiere 25’
INTERVAL: 15 minutes
Justė Janulytė Confluere for chamber orchestraUK premiere 8’
Hannah Eisendle AzinheiraUK premiere 8’
Katherine Balch musica pyralisUK premiere 10’
Jack Sheen conductor
Peter Moore trombone
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Introduction
A warm welcome to tonight’s concert, in which Jack Sheen makes his debut with BBC NOW in a programme that showcases five works by some of the brightest stars among the younger generation of composers. All five are receiving their UK or world premieres.
We begin with Isabella Gellis’s enchanting Valedictions; next, Deborah Pritchard’s Trombone Concerto ‘Light Circle’ which explores the composer’s own synaesthesia and was written for this evening’s soloist Peter Moore (who many will remember as the youngest-ever winner of BBC Young Musician of the Year). Justė Janulytė’s shimmering Confluere was written as a preface to Mozart’s 40th Symphony, while Hannah Eisendle’s Azinheira was inspired by the resilience of the holm oak native to southern Portugal. We end in the magical nocturnal world of Katherine Balch’s musica pyralis.
Enjoy!
Lisa Tregale
Director
Please respect your fellow audience members and those listening at home: mobile phones may be kept on but on silent and with the brightness turned down; other electronic devices should be switched off during the performance. Photography and recording are not permitted.
Isabella Gellis
Valedictions (2023)
world premiere
Valedictions is a piece that tries to reconstruct itself from the residue of its former life; a 10-bar ghost melody heard in the air, not quite tangible, finding comfort in tactility and simplicity. It’s a study of unisons, both vertical and diagonal. It was written for Aspen Music Festival in 2023.
Programme note © Isabella Gellis
Deborah Pritchard
Trombone Concerto, ‘Light Circle’ (2025–6)
UK premiere
1 Compass –
He set a compass upon the face of the depth (Proverbs 8.27)
2 Earth Circle –
The circle of the earth that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain (Isaiah 40.22)
3 Light Wheel –
One wheel upon the earth by the living creatures (Ezekiel 1.15–21)
4 Celestial –
And I heard the voice of many angels around the throne (Revelation 5.11)
Peter Moore trombone
Light Circle takes its inspiration from the watercolour and ink painting of the same name by Wassily Kandinsky, dating from 1922 – his Bauhaus era. Through my synaesthesia (where I link colour to intervals) I gradually reveal the contrasting colours and radiant circular form through an ever-flowing narrative on the solo trombone, which is in both dialogue and tension with the orchestra.
In synergy with Kandinsky’s deeply spiritual approach to the power of shapes, particularly his view of the circle as a signal to the eternal divine, I’ve also aligned the structural gear changes of the work with four sacred texts taken from the King James Bible. The first, ‘Compass’, begins in darkness and mystery, gradually giving way to the symbolic voice of the trombone in all its strength. As the velocity builds, the music becomes brighter with shimmering hues leading to the second movement, ‘Earth Circle’, where gliding trombone moves over a faster-moving tapestry. This sense of hope builds throughout before the following movement (‘Light Wheel’) returns us to the opening tension, though luminosity reappears as harp and celesta pervade the landscape, with delicate solo wind and string quartet in dialogue with muted evocations by the solo trombone. Unaccompanied trombone concludes this section, leading into the final movement, ‘Celestial’, in which the solo trombone sings over richly divided strings and close modal harmonies, binding together this glowing canvas inspired by Kandinsky’s colour and the sacred light of Revelation.
Programme note © Deborah Pritchard
INTERVAL: 15 minutes
Justė Janulytė
Confluere (2024)
UK premiere
‘Confluere’ (from Latin ‘to flow together’), like one river flowing into another, was composed to be performed as a preface to Mozart’s 40th Symphony in G minor. My piece takes the symphony’s first theme – the sighing sospiro figure – and repeats it breathlessly, almost obsessively through different layers of the dense orchestral texture, while slowing it down considerably. This minor second-based motif is explored through various angles and colours, harmonies and timbres, gradually expanding its range up to the limits and thus preparing the listeners – in the original setting – for the arrival of the Mozart.
Programme note © Juste Janulyte
Hannah Eisendle
Azinheira (2024)
UK premiere
1 Silver –
2 White –
3 Dark Green
Azinheira takes its title from the holm oak, a tree native to southern Portugal, whose presence punctuates an otherwise barren, sun-scorched landscape. Offering shade, shelter and endurance, the holm oak stands as a quiet witness to time: some specimens live for several centuries. In this work, the tree becomes a metaphor for resilience and for the slow transformation from isolated endurance under oppression to the emergence of collective solidarity.
The piece is in three sections, named after the changing colours of the holm oak’s leaves as they unfold in spring: ‘Silver’, ‘White’ and ‘Dark Green’. These stages trace a gradual process rather than an abrupt rupture. Freedom, as suggested here, is not conceived as an individual act of liberation, but as a fragile and evolving collective achievement – one that must be negotiated, sustained and renewed.
At the centre of the work lies the question of how communal agreement can arise from a multiplicity of voices. Musically, this inquiry unfolds through the treatment of a motif taken from ‘Grândola, Vila Morena’, the song that became the anthem of the Portuguese anti-fascist movement during the Carnation Revolution of 1974. Initially exposed by solo instruments, the motif appears tentative and vulnerable, as if testing the possibility of being heard. As it spreads through the orchestra, it is repeatedly transformed, absorbed, resisted and fractured, reflecting the instability of collective processes and the oscillation between cohesion and fragmentation.
Rather than following a narrative involving inevitable triumph, the piece allows moments of failure, hesitation and exhaustion to remain audible. Its conclusion, however, turns towards a dance-like euphoria in which movement and rhythm suggest shared energy and renewal – yet without erasing the traces of struggle. What resonates in the final bars is not only celebration, but the memory of a long journey endured together: a moment of rest, perhaps, in the shade of a holm oak that no longer knows its age.
Programme note © Hannah Eisendle
Katherine Balch
musica pyralis (2023)
UK premiere
Musicapyralis was co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and the Pittsburg, Santa Rosa, Erie and Ann Arbor Symphony orchestras, with support from New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices Program.
Most of my music tries to filter the sights and sounds of my own environment through the instruments I’m writing for, kind of like a musical sieve. In musica pyralis, the orchestra sings the summer soundscape of my new home in rural Connecticut, where, thanks to little light pollution, fireflies bashfully illuminate the nightly cacophony of frogs and crickets and many other little creatures. Nature is the best orchestrator – despite the saturated soundscape, each noise-maker can hear and be heard as they occupy distinct registral and timbral areas. I try to capture a glimpse of this miraculously transparent density in this (mostly) brisk concert piece, and set to song the gently omnipresent twinkle of the photinus pyralis (common eastern firefly).
Programme note © Katherine Balch
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Echoes of France
Thursday 26/2/26, 7.30pm
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
Sibelius Pelléas et Mélisande – suite
Ravel Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
Chausson Symphony in B flat
Clelia Cafiero conductor
Nicholas McCarthy piano
RICH | BRILLIANT | IMPASSIONED
Left‑handed piano sensation Nicholas McCarthy makes his BBC NOW debut in Ravel’s electrifying Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Sibelius’ darkly atmospheric Pelléas et Mélisande suite opens the concert, followed by Chausson’s brilliantly colourful and powerful Symphony – a journey from radiant energy to hushed intensity and a dazzling finale.
Book tickets for just £7 using promotion code NOWYOU https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/evr6gw
Biographies
Jack Sheen conductor
Hugo Glendinning
Hugo Glendinning
Jack Sheen is a conductor and composer from Manchester, recognised for his inventive approach to music-making, which blends orchestral traditions with an expansive interdisciplinary perspective.
He has conducted some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the BBC, BBC Scottish and London Symphony orchestras, BBC and London Philharmonic orchestras, as well as new music specialists such as the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, Ensemble 10:10, Bit20 Ensemble and London Sinfonietta. This season he makes his debut with Ulster Orchestra and Manchester Camerata and returns to Klangforum Wien.
Equally at home in opera, he made his Royal Opera House debut in 2022, conducting the world premiere of Oliver Leith and Matt Copson’s Last Days, to great acclaim. In 2024 he conducted a new production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress with English Touring Opera and returned to Tanglewood, conducting Sir George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence.
He has collaborated on interdisciplinary projects with leading visual, dance and experimental music artists, including Matthew Barney, Cerith Wyn Evans, Burrows & Fargion and Elaine Mitchener. In 2024 he co-directed London Sinfonietta in a rare live performance of Beckett’s Quad at Southbank Centre, paired with Feldman’s For Samuel Beckett.
As co-director of London Contemporary Music Festival he has curated sell-out events across the capital, bringing together internationally established and grass-roots artists from a wide range of disciplines in programmes hailed as adventurous and provocative.
As a composer, he has been commissioned and had works performed by many of the orchestras and ensembles he conducts, alongside commissions from eminent arts organisations such as the Venice Biennale, Casa de Serralves in Porto, and London’s V&A and Camden Art Centre. Recentprojects include Lag, a spatialised orchestral piece commissioned by BBC SSO and Ilan Volkov forTectonics Festival; Press, a piano quintet commissioned by Wigmore Hall and Apartment House; and Ceremony Container, a spatialised performance commissioned by Ensemble Mosaik and Berlin’s Silent Green. Wien Modern has commissioned him to compose a work for flute, accordion, cello and pre-recorded sound.
Jack Sheen’s most recent awards include an Ernst von Siemens Foundation Progetto Positano Residency (2024) and a PRS Composers Fund (2021). He was named BBC Young Composer of the Year in 2011.
Peter Mooretrombone
Peter Moore was born in Belfast and brought up in Greater Manchester; his experiences as part of the world-renowned Northern brass band culture were crucial to his rapid development as a very young player. He came to international attention in 2008 when, aged 12, he became the youngest-ever winner of BBC Young Musician of the Year, launching a solo career that continues to go from strength to strength.
He has performed with leading orchestras, including the BBC, London and Lucerne Symphony orchestras, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Polish Chamber Orchestra and Ulster Orchestra. He has also given recitals at some of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals, among them the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Cologne Philharmonie, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, London’s Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall, Vienna Musikverein and Zurich Tonhalle, as well as at the Spoleto Festival, USA. Tours have taken him as far as Australasia, China, Japan, South America and South Korea, and from 2015 to 2017 he was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.
His repertoire stretches from the early Baroque via Romantic lieder transcriptions to contemporary works. He has premiered trombone works written for him by Francisco Coll (Chanson et Bagatelle), Roxanna Panufnik (When You Appear) and Dani Howard (Trombone Concerto) and many others. He also gave the UK premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Trombone Concerto with the LSO and the European premiere of Joe Chindamo’s Ligeia with the National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin.
Concerto highlights haved include performances in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall with Sir Simon Rattle and the BBC Proms with Vasily Petrenko.
His debut album Life Force was released in 2018. Accompanied by James Baillieu, the record features a selection of lieder arranged for trombone and piano as well as works originally written for trombone.
Peter Moore is the former Principal Trombone of the London Symphony Orchestra, joining in 2014 as the youngest-ever player. After 10 years, he resigned in order to focus on his career as a soloist. He is currently a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and has given masterclasses all over the world in institutions including the Juilliard School, Paris Conservatoire and New England Conservatory.
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
For over 90 years, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the only professional symphony orchestra in Wales, has played an integral part in the cultural landscape of the country, occupying a distinctive role as both a broadcast and national orchestra, and serving as an ambassador of Welsh culture, regularly performing music created in Wales and championing Welsh composers and artists.
Part of BBC Cymru Wales and supported by the Arts Council of Wales, BBC NOW performs a busy schedule of concerts and broadcasts, working with acclaimed conductors and soloists from across the world, including its Principal Conductor, the award-winning Ryan Bancroft.
The orchestra is committed to working in partnership with community groups and charities, taking music out of the concert hall and into settings such as schools and hospitals to enable others to experience and be empowered by music. It undertakes workshops, concerts and side-by-side performances to inspire and encourage the next generation of performers, composers and arts leaders, and welcomes thousands of young people and community members annually through its outreach and education projects.
BBC NOW performs annually at the BBC Proms and biennially at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, and its concerts can be heard regularly across the BBC – on Radio 3, Radio Wales and Radio Cymru. On screen, music performed by BBC NOW can be heard widely across the BBC and other global channels, including the soundtrack and theme tune for Doctor Who, Planet Earth III, Prehistoric Planet, The Pact and Children in Need.
Based at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff Bay, BBC NOW utilises a state-of-the-art recording studio with a camera system for livestreams and TV broadcasts to bring BBC NOW’s music to a broader audience across Wales and the world. For more information about BBC NOW please visit bbc.co.uk/now
Patron
HM King Charles III KG KT PC GCB
Principal Conductor
Ryan Bancroft
PrincipalGuest Conductor
Jaime Martín
Composer-in-Association
Gavin Higgins
First Violins
Mark Derudder
Terry Porteus
Second Violins
Kirsty Lovie #
Violas
Cellos
Pedro Silva
Double Basses
Richard Lewis
Clare Larkman
Piccolo
Oboes
Clarinets
William White
Lenny Sayers **+
Bass Clarinet
Lenny Sayers †**+
Bassoons
David Buckland
Contrabassoon
David Buckland †
Horns
Trumpets
Corey Morris †
Trombones
Bass Trombone
Tuba
Timpani
Percussion
Ewan Millar
Harp
Tomos Xerri
Piano/Celesta
Catherine Roe Williams
* Section Principal
The list of players was correct at the time of publication
Director Lisa Tregale
+ Green Team member
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