Works
Soloists and orchestra
Milky Ways (2022)
concerto for cor anglais and orchestra
20'
I The Infant Gaze
II Interplays
III At the Fountainhead of God
Publisher: Edition Wilhelm Hansen
We all began life on milky ways. Milky, as the bronze-sheathed infant gaze halts and entices the Fountainhead of God to flow. The bubbling life force nourishes but is also the greatest of all forms of tenderness, closeness and primitive interaction. The skill we have practised in the secrecy of the womb lapses with the passing of the years, but the interplay it has generated never deserts us – it is the love that sustains us even after the final departure. Transporting us through the concerto is the hypnotic sound of the cor anglais that soars from Mother Earth to the celestial Milky Way; to the sweet, solid, loving cradle of life. The concerto was commissioned jointly by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the BBC and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras and is dedicated to Nicholas Daniel, the oboist who hypnotised me with his playing.
Premiere: March 15-16, 2023
Helsinki Music Centre, Helsinki, Finland
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, cond. Nicholas Collon
Nicholas Daniel, cor anglais
April 21-23, 2023
Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, USA
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, cond. Christian Macelaru
Russ de Luna, cor anglais
October 27, 2023, UK premiere
Barbican, London, The United Kingdom
BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Afkham
Nicholas Daniel, cor anglais
April 17, 2025
Tampere Hall, Tampere, Finland
Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Pekka Kuusisto
Nicholas Daniel, cor anglais