LSO Futures 6.30pm: Music by Mark Simpson, Betsy Jolas & more

Music is constantly evolving and endlessly intriguing, as living legend Betsy Jolas well knows, and her Well Met Suite is a mirror into the characteristics of musicians at work. It is ‘music about music, and the life of music’.

Striking short works by Charlie Piper and Ayanna Witter-Johnson begin the programme, and we will hear the premiere of George Stevenson’s Vanishing City, much-delayed by COVID. Stevenson shares with Piper and Witter-Johnson his experience as an alumnus of the LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme, and like all the composers we hear today, they are at the cutting edge of classical music of our age.

Mark Simpson’s Violin Concerto was first heard in April in a streamed concert, receiving rave reviews, and tonight we’ll be among the very first people to hear it in person. This imaginative young Liverpudlian composer has a habit of thinking big, and telling it like it is. With Nicola Benedetti bringing all her unrivalled charisma and communicative power, this work is something very special indeed.

NB. This is a change to earlier listings. Due to disruption caused by travel restrictions and quarantine requirements, François-Xavier Roth and Patricia Kopatchinskaja regrettably had to withdraw from this concert. This necessitated a change of artists and programme.