BBC NOW – NOW!

Jessie Montgomery
Coincident Dances12’
UK premiere

Elena Kats-Chernin
Fantasie im Wintergarten30’
UK premiere

INTERVAL: 20 minutes

Huw Watkins
Symphony No. 225’

Gemma Newconductor
Emily Sun violin

The concert is being recorded by BBC Radio 3 for future broadcast in Classical Live and the New Music Show; it will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds, where you can also find podcasts and music mixes.

Coincident Dances is inspired by the sounds found in New York’s various cultures, capturing the frenetic energy and multicultural aural palette you hear even in a short walk through one of its neighbourhoods. The work is a fusion of several different sound-worlds: English consort, samba, mbira dance music from Ghana, swing and techno.

My reason for choosing these styles sometimes stemmed from an actual experience of accidentally hearing a pair simultaneously, which happens most days of the week walking through the streets of New York, or one time when I heard a parked car playing Latin jazz while I had rhythm and blues in my headphones. Some of the pairings are merely experiments. Working in this mode, the orchestra takes on the role of a DJ of a multicultural dance track.

^{Programme note © Jessie Montgomery}

Emily Sunviolin

This work was commissioned by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra with generous support from Mary Lou Simpson. Mary Lou and I have known each other for many years and this is our third shared composing project. The violinist Emily Sun had mentioned that she would love a concerto from me, and I wrote Fantasie im Wintergarten with her in mind.

This concerto was inspired by some elements from a 1920s German silent film. At the movie’s core is a tragic tale of love and betrayal that takes place inside the world of the fairground and circus; most of its scenes are performed at a renowned Berlin venue that still exists today, the Wintergarten. For this concerto, I wanted to build on such contrasting themes as light and shadow, tango and chaos, yearning and foreboding: all of which would give Emily a great vehicle to showcase both her virtuosity and her lyricism.

From the textural point of view the violin moves between operating soloistically and as an entity within the orchestra. The piece falls into three distinct movements, with recurring motivic elements that appear in different guises through each one.

After a short introduction a recurring four-note tango motif appears in the violin’s lowest register, which is followed by a succession of unsettling ideas. The first movement finishes with a punchy, sonorous, rhythmic dance firstly in C minor and then, after a short interjection, in D minor.

Sombre blues-like phrases in low woodwinds build the introduction to the middle movement. The soloist enters with eerily long notes that caress the gentle chordal and melodic patterns of the strings. The horns and trumpets herald the return of the winds and brass, with trumpet, piccolo and flute playing the eerily long notes and the violin providing a gentle counterpoint. After building to a climax, the movement concludes with a subdued reprise of the introductory material.

The finale contrasts solo violin with a somewhat morbid cabaret-style accompaniment (mostly in brass and strings). The culmination comes when the initial four-note tango returns, announced by big orchestral chords, almost like a march. It morphs into the piece’s final section, which includes a cadenza for the soloist, before finding resolution in its closing moments.

^{Programme note © Elena Kats-Chernin}

INTERVAL: 20 minutes

1 Allegro ma non troppo
2  Lento
3  Allegro

The co-commissioning of Huw Watkins’s Second Symphony by the Hallé and BBC NOW reflects his fruitful relationships with both orchestras. With the latter he was Composer-in-Association from 2015 to 2018, and it was the former that commissioned his First Symphony. Its success led to a request for another work, with the strong hint that a successor symphony would be welcomed. Composed between 2020 and 2021, the Second Symphony was premiered during the pandemic, at a filmed Hallé concert broadcast on 15 April 2021, conducted by Sir Mark Elder. Of it, Watkins comments: ‘Having got to know both orchestras very well, I hope this new symphony will challenge and entertain both them and their discerning audiences.’ Its immediacy and impressive compositional panache were recognised by the 2022 Sky Arts Classical Music Award.

Although there’s no extra-musical inspiration behind the symphony, Watkins acknowledges that the strangeness of the time during its gestation helped define its character, determining his ambition that the music should arrive at a positive destination by its conclusion. Overall, it has an open-air quality that breathes a spirit of renewal and also reflects Watkins’s comment, ‘I love trying to find fresh ways of using tonal, triadic material, combined with rhythms to tease the ears of players and listeners alike.’

Underlying the opening movement is a tripartite structure in which thematic ideas are revealed, developed and reviewed. During its span there’s a gradual accelerando through a series of three climaxes. The music emerges from fragmentary cells on the winds, each a tiny canon tumbling over one another in close imitation. They establish a process of burgeoning organic growth germane to the symphony as a whole. Important, too, is a lyrical, airy melody introduced by the oboe. The movement finally peters out, all energy spent.

Contrasting the first movement’s vitality, the second is an expansive period of repose, crafted around two ideas. The first presents a still, hushed vista, as muted strings alternate with wind and brass chords. In the second, clarinets and divided pizzicato first violins introduce a falling idea that morphs into a further one which the woodwind choir, sans bassoons, relish. A quickening of tempos brings two resounding climaxes, and at the end a touch of aural magic as crotales, glockenspiel and harp quietly chime.

The finale is cast as a sustained accelerando spread over four rising and falling phrases, each culminating in climactic bursts of sonorous sound. A breezy dialogue rippling between flutes defines the first; descending clarinets initiate the second, while the third starts softly with animated imitative counterpoint on violins and violas. As the music thrusts forward to the next climax, dance-like and exultant, C major is reached with its implications of hope and light. Strings launch the final section, a coda propelled by a relentless momentum, the symphony concluding, in Watkins’s words, with an ‘upward rush of optimism’.

^{Programme note © Andrew Burn}

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‘Grace’

Friday 21/2/25, 7.30pm
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff

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Grace Williams Symphony No. 1

Emilia Hoving conductor
Clare Hammond piano

INSPIRATIONAL | ORIGINAL | RESONATING

We continue our Grace series showcasing Welsh talent and women in music this spring with works by Cecilia Darmström, Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade and Grace Williams, all under the baton of Emilia Hoving.

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Biographies

Gemma Newconductor

New Zealand-born Gemma New is Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and sought-after as a guest conductor worldwide. She was the recipient of the 2021 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award.

Highlights of this season include her debuts with the Munich Radio Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Brussels and Netherlands Philharmonic orchestras, Prague Philharmonia and Musikkollegium Winterthur. She returns to lead the Barcelona, BBC Scottish, Indianapolis, Malmö, Milwaukee and St Louis Symphony orchestras, Juilliard Orchestra, Mendelssohn Academy Orchestra Leipzig, Orchestra della Toscana and the Bergen and Royal Philharmonic orchestras.

Highlights with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra include performances of Lyell Cresswell’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and the New Zealand premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Asteroid.

She regularly appears with top international orchestras, having conducted the BBC, Helsinki, Los Angeles, New York Philharmonic orchestras, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Montreal, St Louis, San Diego, San Francisco, Sydney and WDR Symphony orchestras, National Symphony Orchestra Washington DC, Minnesota Orchestra, Hallé, Orchestre National de Lyon and Orquesta Nacional de España, among many others.

Last season marked her final one as Music Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in Ontario. During her tenure she deepened the artistic excellence of the orchestra and expanded its reach into the community, as well as collaborating with many of Canada’s leading soloists, including James Ehnes, Timothy Chooi, Janina Fialkowska and Stewart Goodyear.

A former Dudamel Conducting Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, she was previously Associate Conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. In 2018 she was a Conducting Fellow at Tanglewood, where she led the world premiere of Michael Gandolfi’s In America.

She is committed to new music and made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2013 with works by John Adams and Andrew Norman. In 2010, she founded the Lunar Ensemble, a nine-member contemporary music ensemble that premiered 30 works over six seasons. New has conducted works by Thomas Adès, Anna Clyne, Kevin Puts, Steve Mackey, Aaron Jay Kernis and many others.

Gemma New holds a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting from the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. She graduated with honours from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand with a Bachelor of Music in violin performance.

Emily Sunviolin

Emily Sun’s powerful sound, compelling interpretations and engaging presence have won her international renown. She originally came to fame as a featured soloist in the acclaimed award-winning Australian documentary Mrs Carey’s Concert. She is now based in London and has performed with leading orchestras and in major concert halls around the world.

Emily Sun was the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Artist-in-Association last season, during which she gave the acclaimed world premiere of the work she performs tonight, commissioned from Elena Kats-Chernin by the ASO for her. This autumn also sees the release of her debut concerto album Film Fantasia, which includes live recordings of Fantasie im Wintergarten, the Korngold Violin Concerto and John Williams’s Theme from Schindler’s List.

In addition to tonight’s concert with BBC NOW she also makes debuts with the Johannesburg Philharmonic and KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic orchestras and returns to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Australian Youth Orchestra, as well as giving a recital at Sydney Opera House.

Recent orchestral performances include concerts with the Melbourne, Sydney, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony orchestras with conductors such as Vasily Petrenko, Andrew Litton, Jaime Martín, Mark Wigglesworth, Johannes Fritzsch and Benjamin Northey.

She was invited to perform at Buckingham Palace alongside Maxim Vengerov in the presence of HRH King Charles III, and at the Royal Palace of Brussels in the presence of the King and Queen of Belgium. Awards and prizes have included 2018 ABC Young Performers Award, the 2016 Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition, and the Brahms, Yampolsky and Lipizer violin competitions.

Recent chamber recitals include Music in the Round, performances with pianists Anna Tilbrook and Joseph Havlat and a residency at the Australian Chamber Music Festival.

Her debut album, Nocturnes, was released to critical acclaim; she also features on a disc of the chamber works of Robert Kahn.

Emily Sun studied with Robin Wilson, Itzhak Rashkovsky and Augustin Dumay and received further mentoring from Pinchas Zukerman, Maxim Vengerov and Ivry Gitlis. She is a violin professor at the Royal College of Music and plays a 1753 G. B. Guadagnini, on generous loan from the UKARIA Cultural Trust.

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
Conductor Laureate
Tadaaki Otaka ^CBE
Composer-in-Association
Gavin Higgins

First Violins
Nick Whiting leader
Gwenllian Hâf MacDonald
Terry Porteus
Suzanne Casey
Žanete Uškāne
Ruth Heney
Carmel Barber
Emilie Godden
Kerry Gordon-Smith
Alejandro Trigo
Anna Cleworth
Juan Gonzalez
Jane Sinclair
Amy Fletcher

Second Violins
Anna Smith *
Paul Medd
Sheila Smith
Joseph Williams
Beverley Wescott
Vickie Ringguth
Katherine Miller
Roussanka Karatchivieva
Michael Topping
Lydia Caines
Gary George-Veale
Elizabeth Whittam

Violas
Alex Thorndike #
Tetsuumi Nagata
Peter Taylor
Lowri Taffinder
Robert Gibbons
Lydia Abell
Anna Growns
Catherine Palmer
Laura Sinnerton
Dáire Roberts

Cellos
Joely Koos ‡
Jessica Feaver
Sandy Bartai
Carolyn Hewitt
Rachel Ford
Keith Hewitt
Alistair Howes
Kathryn Graham

Double Basses
Alex Jones #
Christopher Wescott
Richard Gibbons
Richard English
Hannah Turnbull

Flutes
Matthew Featherstone *
John Hall †
Lindsey Ellis

Piccolos
Lindsey Ellis †
John Hall
Matthew Featherstone

Oboes
Steve Hudson *
Amy McKean †

Cor anglais
Amy McKean †

Clarinets
Nicholas Carpenter *
Lenny Sayers

Bass Clarinet
Lenny Sayers †

Bassoons
Alison Wormell
Jo Shewan
David Buckland

Contrabassoon
David Buckland † 

Horns
Tim Thorpe *
Tom Taffinder
Neil Shewan †
Max Garrard **
John Davy

Trumpets
Philippe Schartz *
Robert Samuel
Andy Dunn
Will Morley **

Trombones
Donal Bannister *
Dafydd Thomas

Bass Trombone
Darren Smith †

Tuba
Daniel Trodden † 

Timpani
Steve Barnard *

Percussion
Phil Girling
Phil Hughes
Andrea Porter
Riccardo Fabisiak

Harp
Elen Hydref

* Section Principal
† Principal
‡ Guest Principal
# Assistant String Principal
** Watkins only

The list of players was correct at the time of publication

Director Lisa Tregale
Orchestra Manager Liz Williams
Assistant Orchestra Manager Nick Olsen **
Orchestra Personnel ManagerKevin Myers
Business Coordinator Georgia Dandy
Orchestra Administrator Eleanor Hall +
Head of Artistic Planning and ProductionMatthew Wood
Artists and Projects Manager Victoria Massocchi **
Orchestra Librarian Naomi Roberts
Producer Mike Sims
Broadcast Assistantvacancy
Head of Marketing and Audiences Sassy Hicks
Marketing Coordinator Amy Campbell-Nichols +
Digital Producer Yusef Bastawy **
Social Media Coordinator Harriet Baugh
Education Producers Beatrice Carey, Rachel Naylor maternity cover
Audio Supervisors Simon Smith, Andrew Smillie
Production Business Manager Lisa Blofeld
Stage and Technical Manager Steven Brown +
Assistant Stage and Technical Manager Josh Mead +

+ Green Team member
** Diversity & Inclusion Forum