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        • Emily Howard

        • Torus (Concerto for Orchestra) (2016)
          (for large orchestra)

        • Peters Edition Limited (World)

        Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society and first performed by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (to celebrate its 175th Anniversary) conducted by Vasily Petrenko on 25 August 2016 at the Royal Albert Hall London and on 19 January 2017 at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

        Winner of the orchestral category of the 2017 British (now Ivor Novello) Composer Awards.

        • 3(III:pic).3.3(III:bcl).3(III:cbn)/4.3.2+btbn.1/timp.3perc/hp/str
        • 24 min

        Programme Note

        A whole with a hole, a torus is often described as doughnut-shaped, a squashed and stretched ball held together with a central void. This void is an important concept within the piece, for the music is as much about absence as presence. When I was writing, I would sometimes imagine the torus as a sphere with its heart ripped out. The music is very direct with stark contrasts: there are passages of calm orchestral consonances led by the strings counterbalanced by a grittier music led by percussion. Throughout its 24 minutes, the work is a set of giant rotations – torus-shaped journeys in sound.

        Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society and first performed by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (to celebrate its 175th Anniversary) conducted by Vasily Petrenko on 25 August 2016 at the Royal Albert Hall London and on 19 January 2017 at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Torus won the orchestral category of the 2017 British Composer Awards. It was selected for archive broadcast in the lockdown BBC Proms 2020.

        Torus is one in a series of geometry-inspired works and forms an orchestral triptych with sphere (2017) and Antisphere (2019).

        Emily Howard, August 2023

        Media

        Torus recorded by BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Martyn Brabbins (NMC)

        Scores

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