M11 Festival Academy Soloists

Festival Academy Soloists

Alexandra Wood Violin
Clara Biss Violin
Cian O’Duill Viola
Robin Michael Cello
Huw Watkins Piano

Robert Saxton A Yardstick to the Stars 25’
Charlotte Bray Replay (world premiere) 10’
Fauré Piano Quintet No 2 in C minor, Op.115 33’

Inspired by celestial geometry and spherical trigonometry respectively, Saxton and Bray’s compositions truly embody our music and maths theme. But if you weren’t a big maths fan at school, don’t let this put you off… Charlotte’s music was recently described as ‘fixing in sharp colours a distinctive world of great beauty and surprising emotional gravity.’ (Daily Telegraph)

Three years after Fauré completed his second Piano Quintet (1921), Copland penned an article, ‘Gabriel Fauré, a Neglected Master’ describing the work as Fauré’s masterpiece. Saxton’s a Yardstick to the Stars might be considered similarly neglected: this is the first performance in over a decade of a work that shimmers with submerged energy in a way that complements the pulsing, dancing colour of Fauré’s quintet. The principals of our Festival Academy—all outstanding soloists in their own right—come together to perform this varied and fascinating programme.

A Yardstick to the Stars is part of Encore, a Royal Philharmonic Society and BBC Radio 3 initiative that programmes music which has been unjustly neglected.

Recorded for Broadcast
on BBC Radio 3

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