New work featured at Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music

Nathan James Dearden has been selected as a featured young composer in this year's Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music.

Selected to take part in the first Peter Reynolds Composer Studio, the young composers have the opportunity to work with the festival's artists and showcase their music in one of Britain's finest new music festivals.

They will benefit from an exciting few days of workshops, seminars, one-to-one sessions with visiting composers and attendance at rehearsals and concerts.

In each module there will also be an opportunity for composers to hear a read-through and archival recording of a short work played by ensembles who are taking part in the Festival. These sessions are open to the public.

Works by Nathan Dearden, William Marsey, Lucy McPhee and David Roche can be heard at St. David’s Hall on Monday 22nd May at 2.00pm performed by Grand Band from New York.

Works by Jordan Hirst, Anselm McDonnell, Sam Messer and Yfat Soul Zissocan be heard at Cardiff University School of Music on Friday 26th May at 2.30pm performed by the Marsyas Trio.

The Composer Studio has been named in celebration of the festival's friend and colleague Peter Reynolds who passed away suddenly at the end of last year. Peter was a highly original composer whose works display a huge depth of knowledge of musical literature. He was not only highly informed but had a unique artistic perspective as well. He had a long connection with the Vale of Glamorgan Festival and at the time of his death was working on a special commission for the 2017 Festival of a car horn fanfare.

The Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music is a contemporary music festival based in and around the county of Vale of Glamorgan, Wales and held annually during May (formerly September). The festival was founded in 1969 by Welsh composer John Metcalf, who is the Artistic Director to this day.

After initially being a generic classical music festival, the Vale of Glamorgan Festival re-defined its artistic vision in 1992 to become a "festival of living composers". Since then it has gained a reputation as one of the most adventurous and unique in Great Britain.[In recognition of this position, the Vale of Glamorgan Festival received the Prudential Award in 1994. The Festival’s Artistic Director received one of four inaugural Creative Wales Ambassador Awards from the Arts Council of Wales in 2009.

For more information about the festival, please CLICK HERE.