| Thursday 18 September 2025 | 20:00 |
| Tamsin Waley-Cohen | Violin |
| Caroline Pether | Violin |
| Manchester Camerata |
Manchester Camerata and violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen join forces to perform the London Premiere of Nick Martin’s Violin Concerto, which serves as a love letter to British Artist and Sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth. This hour-long performance presents the new work alongside music of Mozart, Britten and Priaulx Rainier, celebrating themes of youth and connection to Hepworth herself.
For this newly Camerata-commissioned violin concerto, Nick Martin has composed a love letter to the work of sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth. Composed whilst staying in St Ives, Nick says ‘A particular point of inspiration has been Barbara Hepworth’s ‘Landscape Sculpture’—a carved torso-sized, cradle-like form in elm with nine strings of fishing line. I found the number nine resonant, suggestive of the nine months of pregnancy’.
We present this new work alongside music by Mozart, Britten and Priaulx Rainier, all celebrating themes of youth or with a connection to Hepworth herself. Mozart’s Symphony No. 1 was composed when he was just 8 years old, and you can hear the joy of youth in the wind solos. Similarly, the melodies that Britten draws on in his Simple Symphony were written whilst he was still a child, and is dedicated to his Viola teacher. Britten and Hepworth were introduced to one another through the composer Priaulx Rainier. Movement was written whilst she was staying with Barbara Hepworth in St Ives during the winter of 1950-51.
Nick Martin is a composer based in Copenhagen.
This event will last approximately 75 minutes, with no interval.
