OVER DEZE AFLEVERING
In this final introduction to world premieres at the BBC Proms, I’m talking to the composer Freya Waley-Cohen. Her work Naiad was premiered and broadcast on the 9th September, performed by the Knussen Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. The performance is now available via BBC Sounds.
https://notesonnotespodcastdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/16-an-introduction-with-freya-waley-cohen.mp3Freya Waley-Cohen © William Marsey
‘At once intimate and visionary’ (BBC Music Magazine), Freya’s music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles and institutions such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC Proms, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Wigmore Hall, the Aldeburgh, Sainte-Mere, Santa Fe, Cheltenham and Ryedale Festivals, CHROMA Ensemble, the Hermes Experiment, and Nonclassical, and released on Signum, Nimbus, Nonclassical and NMC.
Winner of a 2017 RPS Composition Prize, Freya was associate composer of NonClassical 2016-18 and is associate composer of St. David’s Hall’s Nightmusic. Freya held an Open Space Residency at Snape Maltings from 2015-2017 during which she collaborated with architectural designers Finbarr O’Dempsey and Andrew Skulina & her sister, violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, to create Permutations, an architectural performance artwork launched at the 2017 Aldeburgh Festival. Permutations has since toured to the Dartington Festival, Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Institute of British Architecture North, and been released as a CD on Signum Classics.
In the 2019/20 season Freya will be the Wigmore Hall’s associate composer and her upcoming commissions include works for the Wigmore Hall, The King’s Singers and the Britten Sinfonia.
Since founding it in 2012 with fellow composers William Marsey and Josephine Stephenson, Freya has been artistic director of Listenpony, a concert series and record label that has commissioned over 30 new works from early-career composers.
To find out more about Freya and her work, please visit her website.
The theme tune is ‘Dusty Rag’ by May Aufderheide. Performed by Joanna Goldstein for Centaur. This podcast is licensed by PRS for Music (www.prsformusic.com).
