UYMP University of York Music Press

Sadie Harrison and Alex Wilson Awarded RVW Trust Grant

24 March 2021

We are delighted that pianist Alex Wilson has commissioned house composer Sadie Harrison to write a substantial new work, generously supported by a further grant from the RVW Trust. The project was granted a previous award from the Ambache Charitable Trust. The collaboration came about after Alex’s recent release of a Toccata Classics CD of works by the little-known Australian composer Frederick Septimus Kelly, who died at the Battle of the Somme aged 35.

Sadie's pieces are designed to be interspersed between Kelly’s piano works illuminating diary entries that he wrote throughout his life, chronologically arranged. The music will be full of references to Kelly’s own works and also to the traditional music from many of the countries with which he is associated - Scotland, England, Australia, France and through his friends to the Middle East. The piece is a celebration, and a homage to an extraordinary composer whose music has been likened to that of Scriabin, Vaughan Williams and Rachmaninov - a voice cut short through the tragedy of the First World War. 

Alex writes: Thanks so much to The Ambache Charitable Trust for supporting a new commission from Sadie Harrison by the pianist Alex Wilson.  Alex has been performing the music of the forgotten composers of WW1 since 2014, and released some of the previously unrecorded piano music of composer, pianist, rower and war hero F.S.Kelly during lockdown on the Toccata Classics label. Sadie’s new work for solo piano will form a part of a series of concerts that honours the life and music of F.S.Kelly, using her own musical voice to bring Kelly’s story to life in a wonderfully original and imaginative way. Concert dates coming soon!

Further information:

www.sadieharrisoncomposer.co.uk

https://www.alexwilsonpianist.com/fskelly-recording.html 

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