Grace: Astral Illuminations

The evening

Conductor Chloe Rooke leads an immersive programme inspired by orbiting worlds, imagined landscapes and folk memory, with Laura van der Heijden as soloist. Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) opens the concert in restless motion, its looping figures circling like a living solar system. The first half culminates in the world premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s Cello Concerto, Astral Illuminations, music of radiant colour and lyric intensity that celebrates the expressive voice of the cello.

After the interval, Grace Williams’s Dark Island Suite evokes rugged seascapes, followed by Grace‑Evangeline Mason’s The Imagined Forest, a surreal, collage‑like journey through fantastical terrain inspired by visual art and folklore. The concert closes with Ester Mägi’s Symphony, rooted in Estonian folk tradition and shaped by a lifetime of deep musical reflection, bringing this richly atmospheric programme to a powerful conclusion.