WPA News Digest – September 14, 2026

By Kathleen McGowan

Lots of exciting news this week!! And as ever some exciting music you can listen to!

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has released an interview with composer Errollyn Wallen, CBE ahead of the premiere of her new work FLARE for their 80th anniversary celebration at the Royal Albert Hall. Wallen is a highly decorated composer: she was named Master of the King’s Music in 2024, and is one of the most frequently performed living classical composers in the world. FLARE is the latest in her massive catalogue of music for orchestras, choirs, chamber ensembles, and the operatic stage.

When considering the commission for a celebratory piece to mark the 80th anniversary of the Royal Philharmonic, Wallen writes that “as always when I compose for orchestra, I wanted to make every section and every player shine.” She combines the excitement and light of a birthday celebration with the grandeur of the premiere’s venue—the Royal Albert Hall, where she has had many pieces premiered over the years, including The Elements (2025), which premiered at the BBC Proms in 2025 (and which I got to both hear and review last year!)

Later this week, two world premieres can be heard in New York and Berlin. From September 16–19, the New York Philharmonic, Chorus, and Brooklyn Youth Chorus will perform the world premiere of Zosha Di Castri’s new work Invisible House for orchestra as part of a program of music opening the orchestra’s subscription season. Di Castri’s piece draws inspriation from her Ukrainian heritage and the life events of her great-grandfather, folk song melodies, and poems by Ukranian poet Ilya Kaminsky. Invisible House is a co-commission between the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The Berlin Philharmonic will perform the world premiere of Cathy Milliken’s why feather yellow, a concerto for English horn and orchestra at Musikfest Berlin.  There are three performances Sept. 17-19, with the one on the 19th available for streaming. Milliken is an oboist, composer, and music teacher, and former director of the Berliner Philharmoniker education program. Her work is a commission by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation. The Berlin Phil discusss Miliken and her work in this detailed article.

On Sept. 16th, the Dunedin consort will present a concert of music from the Classical Era at Wigmore Hall, London. Among the selections will be Marianna Martines’s Overture in C (1770). Martines was  Viennese (and of Spanish heritage), and is a favorite historical composer of both Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy and the Boulanger Initiative. Also titled Sinfonia, WPA publishes the work in an edition prepared in the 1980s by Nan Washburn.  Its premier recording was on The Women’s Philharmonic’s first recording of 1990.

Below is a recording of Martines’s Overture in C Major, performed by Sonnambula & Friends in 2018 as a part of their Hispanic Society Concert Series.

 

Announced September 8th, Anna Thorvaldsdottir has been named Composer in Residence at the Bozar Arts Center in Brussels, for their 2026/27 season. The season begins on Sept 11th with the Belgian National Orchestra performing an opening concert that includes Thorvaldsdottir’s Aeriality (2010/11), and the concert will be the first of seven throughout the season that feature her music. The Belgian National Orchestra will perform four of her major compositions for orchestra, and the Het Collectief and the Quatuor Diotima will present selections of her chamber music. One of the key concerts of the season is December 4th, which includes the Belgian premiere of CATAMORPHOSIS, performed by the Belgian National Orchestra directed by Eva Ollikainen. Inspired by the fragile relationship humans have to our planet, the work is driven by a sense of urgency from beginning to end, a tension between opposing forces.
Below is a recording of the premiere of Aeriality, performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in Reykjavik on November 24th 2011.

 

Announced September 9, playwright Sylvia Milo stars in The Other Mozart at the College of William & Mary. Her acclaimed one-woman play illustrates the life of Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart, and comes to Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 3 as part of the William & Mary Presents! series. Nannerl is one of the most frequently-invoked “unknowns” in the history of Western art music; her life and work regularly represent the limitations to skill and potential of women under patriarchy in the 18th century. As a child she and her famous brother were musical prodigies, but at 17 societal expectations meant that her performing career would end in favor of enhancing her marriage prospects. Her father sought to prepare her for work teaching piano with perhaps some performance, under the assumption that her primary means of support would come from her eventual husband.
Silvia Milo’s play premiered in an off-Broadway run in 2014 and since then has been widely influential, winnng awards and being performed internationally from China to Austria. The Guardian invited Milo to write about the orgins of the play in 2015.  Milo and The Other Mozart were the inspiration for the PBS Documentary Mozart’s Sister in the Secrets of the Dead Series, which is available for PBS Subscribers.

On September 16th, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin will perform at Musikfest Berlin under the direction of Simone Young. Included on the program is Liza Lim‘s Sappho / Bioluminescence for orchestra (2019/20). The piece is the first in a triptych that Lim is currently working on; her notes from her process of working on the piece and the cycle can be explored on her website.
Lim’s music spans instrumental chamber and orchestral works as well as five operas, and she has been widely commissioned by leading orchestras and ensembles. She holds the Sculthorpe Chair of Australian Music at the Sydney Conservatorium, and in 2026 she received theGrawemeyer Award for Music Composition for her cello concerto A Sutured World. Performances in 2026 include: Tongue of the Land, her concerto for carnyx and orchestra (Marco Blaauw and the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra/ Elim Chan at Lucerne Festival); Anima Mundi ~the sentient world~ for large ensemble (Klangforum Wien at Wien Modern); Beings (time and the patina of possibilities) for solo piano and large ensemble (Bertrand Chamayou and Ensemble intercontemporain Paris). Two of her operas— The Oresteia (1993) [ELISION Ensemble/ Sydney Chamber Opera] and Tree of Codes (2016) [Neue Oper Wien/ Klangforum Wien] are being performed in Sydney and Vienna.

Below is a recording of the Austrian premiere of Sappho / Bioluminescence performed by the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien conducted by Marin Alsop, on October 7, 2023.

Finally, some thrilling news in the world of conducting! Michal Oren has been announced as the winner of the distinguished Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition.   The finals, which take place with the City of Birmingham Orchestra, can be viewed on The Medici Channel (subscription required).  The prize includes 20K Euros and a concert conducting the CBSO. Over 350 conductors from 54 countries applied for this year’s competition, with the four finalists being selected by a panel of nine judges. We look forward to following Michal Oren’s career!

Let us know what you’re listening to! Email us at info@wophil.org or use our handy contact form.