Wise Music Classical composers Donnacha Dennehy and Thea Musgrave have been commissioned by BBC Radio 3 as part of the 25 for 25: Sounds of the Century project. Twenty five new commissions, recorded by BBC Performing Groups and Radio 3 New Generation Artists, each respond to a significant event in the first quarter of the new century and will premiere on a rolling basis on the Saturday Morning programme with Tom Service. Additional presentations follow across the Radio 3 schedule.
Hard Landing (2024), by Irish composer and New Jersey resident Donnacha Dennehy, responds to the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson” emergency plane landing in New York City. It was recorded by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales led by Jac Van Steen and will be broadcast on March 29. Acclaimed in America and abroad, Dennehy’s work has been called “thrilling” by The Guardian and “arrestingly beautiful” by The New Yorker. Other recent orchestral works include Brink (2020), Memoria (2021) and his Violin Concerto (2020) commissioned for Augustin Hadelich.
In Memoriam 2022 (2024) by Thea Musgrave reflects on the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and features oboist Nicholas Daniel, violinist Johan Dalene and the BBC Symphony Orchestra led by Nil Venditti. The premiere broadcast will take place on June 28. A recipient of the Queen’s Medal for Music, Musgrave was able to draw on her own time with the late Queen in her writing of the piece. Like Dennehy, Scottish-born Thea Musgrave has made her home in America, where she continues to compose at 96 years old. This February, her grand opera Mary, Queen of Scots (1977) was performed to great acclaim by English National Opera.
The 25 for 25 project also features works by Karen Tanaka, Errollyn Wallen and many more great living composers. Find out more about the project here.
