BBC Philharmonic - Sibelius Symphony No. 2

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Gemma New conductor
Gabriel Cabezas cello

Grażyna Bacewicz Overture
Gabriella Smith Lost Coast: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (UK premiere)
Sibelius Symphony No. 2

The rugged coastline of Northern California was the inspiration for this similarly jagged piece for singing cellist and orchestra by American composer Gabriella Smith. A five-day solo backpacking trip on the Lost Coast Trail found her scrambling up slopes and skipping past huge drops. Smith describes the piece as a ‘raw emotional expression of the grief, loss, rage, and fear experienced as a result of climate change – as well as the joy, beauty, and wonder I have felt in the world’s last wild places.’ Join us for the UK premiere of this extraordinary, vital work.

Written during the German occupation of Poland, Grażyna Bacewicz’s early, energetic Overture is a piece of blazing beauty. It sits one side of Smith’s cello concerto; on the other, Sibelius’s Second Symphony, an organic unfurling of symphonic ideas in a glowing, golden frame.