Isles of Light

Virtuoso Lawrence Power directs a luminous voyage through the poetic soundscapes of Britain featuring music by Vaughan Williams and Kate Bush.

The British Isles boast a magnificent anthology of music grounded in lush, poetic landscapes and thriving cities. This concert will transport you there. British violin and viola virtuoso Lawrence Power makes his ACO debut directing music from Thomas Tallis’ evocative theme - made famous by Vaughan Williams - to the genre-defying exuberance of Kate Bush.

Vaughan Williams’ sublime Fantasia is a pinnacle of the English music tradition that has inspired countless musicians. Herbert Howells heard its premiere and left the cathedral to wander awestruck through the streets of Gloucester, staying up all night with excitement before writing his Elegy, an answer to Vaughan Williams, and a prayer of thanksgiving for musical imagination.

Power is a brilliant violist who is equally at home on the violin. Effortlessly switching between the two instruments in the one performance, he is a thrilling and imaginative artist. Power will perform the world premiere of a new viola concerto written for him by his friend Garth Knox, inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and English folk music.

Opening with a mixtape of English music beginning with Baroque master Henry Purcell, the concert culminates in Elizabeth Maconchy’s Symphony for Double String Orchestra. A lifelong friend of Vaughan Williams, she is considered one of the great 20th-century British composers. Brought to life by an expanded ACO, the symphony will bring this odyssey to a thrilling close.