This concerto has been driven by Colin Currie’s love of Tansy Davies’ work and an abiding desire to work with her more closely, as he describes:

“The proposed commission for a new concerto by Tansy Davies, written for and in collaboration with myself, is something that I have the deepest and strongest feelings about. For many years, I have been watching and moreover listening to Tansy’s music develop and expand in so many ways. With her work ‘Forest’ (2017) for four solo horns and orchestra I could simply delay no further and asked her about writing something for myself in a similar, orchestral context. Her use of colour, power and extremity of emotion are all ideally suited to the presence of solo percussion. Her understanding of groove-based music, in a vast range from sweet simplicity to multi-layered complexity, is also very suggestive of the role I have in mind. I am sure this concerto will furthermore stand alone in my repertoire, in a unique position of originality, vigour and poetry. Lastly, a world premiere at Aldeburgh Festival would be very significant and uplifting for the new piece, given the rich context and history of that place.”

Borne out of a fascination with nature and shamanism, and a grinding rhythmic energy, the music of Tansy Davies has been described as both ‘sleek, hot, earthy’ and ‘transparent, brazenly beautiful’. Her music is championed by ensembles including New York Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and at festivals including Ultima, Présences, Donuaueschinger Musiktage and Warszawska Jesień (Warsaw Autumn). Between Worlds, an operatic response to 9/11, was premiered by English National Opera in 2015, and in 2018 her chamber opera Cave was premiered with Mark Padmore, Elaine Mitchener, and London Sinfonietta. She has taught composition at both Royal Academy of Music, London, and at the Bloomington School of Music, Indiana. Recent projects include Nightingales: Ultra-Deep Field for Arditti Quartet, Monolith: I Extend My Arms, for the strings of Britten Sinfonia, and a residency at Concertgebouw Amsterdam culminating in the ensemble piece Soul Canoe.

This concerto will be a very intimate piece, exploring the close personal and musical relationship between the two sisters, composer and soloist. In the words of Freya Waley-Cohen:

“Tamsin began to play the violin when she was three, which was around the same time I was born, so I grew up with the sound of the violin coming from the next-door bedroom. My earliest memories are sitting in her bedroom watching her practise and waiting for the day I turned 3 and would be allowed to start lessons myself. I learned the violin, entirely inspired by hearing her practise. As she became a teenager, her practising hours expanded. With my bedtime still earlier than hers, the sound of her practising in the evening was what I fell asleep to, and it would become intermingled with my dreams. For this violin concerto, I will return to my intimate knowledge of the way she plays the violin and draw on the memories of those childhood dreams accompanied by her nearby practice.”

We will be delighted to work with Freya again, who is an alumna of our artist development programmes. Described as “at once intimate and visionary” (BBC Music Mag), her music is characterised by contrasts between earthy rhythmic play and fragility, luminous spaces, and a sense of the otherworldly. Freya has been commissioned by institutions and ensembles including Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Proms, Wigmore Hall, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, The King’s Singers, The Manchester Collective and The Hermes Experiment, as well as the Aldeburgh, Presteigne, Santa Fe, and Cheltenham festivals. Her music has been released on Signum, Nimbus, Nonclassical, Delphian, Platoon, and NMC records.

As well as writing the concerto, Ryan Wigglesworth will conduct the Knussen Chamber Orchestra, which he founded in 2019. The piece will be a significant contribution to Ryan’s role as Featured Artist at the Festival. This will mean that a range of his works – effectively a career retrospective – will be programmed across the Festival, with the new concerto as the highlight, marking a major point in Ryan’s career. Ryan has a longstanding relationship with Lawrence Power. Lawrence was the soloist for the world premiere of Ryan’s Five Waltzes in 2020, winning five-star reviews. They are hugely excited to be working together again. The venue is also significant for Ryan, who has written of the Snape Maltings Concert Hall, “Quite simply, it is my favourite hall in the world”.

Ryan Wigglesworth, who took up the position of Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in September 2022, has established himself as one of the foremost composer-conductors of his generation. He was Principal Guest Conductor of the Hallé Orchestra from 2015 to 2018 and Composer in Residence at English National Opera. He held the Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellowship with the Cleveland Orchestra for the two seasons 2013/14 and 14/15 and was Composer-in-Residence at the 2018 Grafenegg Festival. Born in Yorkshire, he studied at New College, Oxford and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Between 2007-9 he was a Lecturer at Cambridge University where he was also a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. In January 2019 he took up the position of Sir Richard Rodney Bennett Professor at the Royal Academy of Music