Wales’ new music ensemble UPROAR’s next tour, Son of Chamber Symphony, heads to Pembrokeshire in March.

The title of the UPROAR programme, Son of Chamber Symphony, is taken from John Adams’ title piece which is part of the programme. It will see the new classical music ensemble perform some of the most exciting new music coming from Wales including three world premieres from Richard Baker, Nathan James Dearden and Lynne Plowman. Richard is based in Aberystwyth and is a flunet Welsh speaker. 

Son of a Chamber Symphony will open at Bangor Music Festival (February 17); Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff (February 22); Aberystwyth Arts Centre (March 7) Theatr Soar, Merthyr Tydfil (March 22) and Rhosygilwen Mansion in Cilgerran (March 23).

The Son of Chamber Symphony programme includes brand new compositions from Welsh composers Richard Baker, Nathan James Dearden and Lynne Plowman.

The three new pieces by Wales based composers have all been inspired by Welsh contemporary life. Some tragic events in the last 100 years around the drowned village to make way for reservoirs, through to the AIDS reporting here in Wales and internationally, as well as how our landscape is now changing with the growth of alternatively technology. 

The tour will also see the UK premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Symphonie Diagonale, which is a dynamic soundtrack complementing the playful abstract film of Viking Eggeling in her piece. 

UPROAR - Wales' New Music Ensemble launched five years and since then have supported through projects and performances 38 Wales based composers, some of the most exciting new voices in contemporary classical music in Wales, at different stages of their career, to develop their work.  

Richard Baker’s piece, ‘Motet IV - Accidental Activists’, is inspired by archival recordings from the early 1980s of the Reagan White House’s inadequate response to the AIDS epidemic in the US, contemporary with the earliest Welsh and Welsh-language manifestations of the crisis.  

Award-winning Welsh composer of concert music and mixed media, conductor, and educator, Nathan James Dearden has worked with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Berkeley Ensemble and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. His new piece, ‘The day following’ is a reflection on lost communities in Wales and how losing one's community has a broader social and cultural impact. The work focuses primarily on the drowning of Capel Celyn, and will feature archival footage of the Capel Celyn alongside how it looks below the waterline now.

Lynne Plowman, particularly known for her operas for Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne and Music Theatre Wales, gets her second UPROAR commission. Her new piece, ‘The Wind Sweepers’, is full of energy and contrasts, based on the movement of wind turbines. This will be her third in a series of ‘musical environmental activism’ pieces.

Artistic Director Michael Rafferty said:

“People should have the opportunity to hear this music wherever they live in Wales. We want to create more opportunities for people in Wales to hear top quality performances of classical music written by living composers from Wales and internationally.  

“Contemporary music has a unique role in articulating contemporary stories. Environmental issues concern us all and form the inspiration for Lynne Plowman’s commission. Nathan James Deardon piece reflects on lost communities in Wales focussing of the drowning of Capel Celyn to form a reservoir, and Ricard Baker’s piece is a response to some of the supressed Welsh voices during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

“We also want more communities in Wales to hear live performances from recognised international composers. John Adams is the world’s most performed contemporary composer, and his ‘Son of Chamber Symphony’ was last heard in Cardiff in 2012. We are thrilled to perform this to audiences throughout Wales.

“Olga Neuwirth came to prominence in the UK through her opera Lost Highway which won a South Bank Show Award. We want Welsh audiences to be able to hear her music and our performances of ‘Symphonie Diagonale’, which accompanies the film by Viking Eggelin, will be the first time this piece has been heard in the UK.”

Each performance features a pre-show discussion with the commissioned composers.

Further information about the tour can be found at uproar.org.uk