The Bangor Music Festival, founded in 2000 and now considered one of the nation’s premier showcases for composers, returns with an exciting programme of world premieres set to take place at the Pontio Arts Centre in Bangor on Saturday, February 14, and Sunday, February 15.
Guto Pryderi Puw, artistic director of the festival, said: “For a composer, sometimes it can be more difficult to receive that second performance than it is to receive a premiere.
“Through the festival’s collaboration with the National Eisteddod, these new pieces will have another outing and be presented to a wider audience, so that more people can appreciate the diverse nature of contemporary music that we as a nation have from our talented living composers.”
This year’s festival explores the theme of Perthnasau (Relationships) and includes six specially commissioned works.
Among them is a piece by emerging composer Bethan Morgan-Williams from Montgomery, which will be performed on the Sunday by flautist Richard Craig in collaboration with Electroacoustic Wales.
Ms Morgan-Williams said: “The piece forms part of a wider research project exploring how musical material develops through collaborative, performer-centred processes, and specifically through methods designed to resist fluency and encourage exploratory instability.
“It’s the culmination of a year-long collaboration between Richard Craig and myself, during which material has been generated and transformed through iterative experimental sessions.”
The programme also features a new commission by PhD student Alice Priggen and two commissions by Welsh composer Tristan Rhys Williams.
Two further festival commissions by Lowri Mair Jones and Nicholas Olsen will be performed by Ensemble CGWM (Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias) alongside pieces by William Mathias and Rhian Samuel at 1pm on Saturday.
Six new works by Bangor University students will also debut over the course of the festival.
A major highlight will be a concert by pianist Llŷr Williams on the Saturday evening, featuring four works premiered at last year’s National Eisteddfod in Wrexham.
He will also perform music by Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich in the second half of the concert.
The festival includes lectures, workshops, and informal performances throughout the Pontio Centre.
Opening performances begin at 1pm on Saturday in Pontio’s Studio, followed by a post-concert talk with composers Lowri Mair Jones and Nicholas Olsen.
Younger audiences can enjoy Camau Cerdd (Steps in Music) workshops on Saturday morning, while a flute workshop with Richard Craig takes place at 11am at Bangor University’s Mathias Hall.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.northwaleschronicle.co.uk ’
