New kid on the block, New London Harmonia brings two premiered by Welsh composer Charlie Barber to its final concert of the season

Charlie Barber at the premiere of his The Fall of the House of Usher with the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Wales in 2012

Welsh composer Charlie Barber, who celebrated his 75th birthday last year [see Ty Cerdd’s birthday profile] is something of a musical chameleon, working in film, dance, the stage and concert platform. Recent work has included the 2013 music-theatre piece Michelangelo Drawing Blood, whilst his film projects include music for Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet (2006), a surrealist classic of early cinema; Salomé (2009), the 1923 film starring Nazimova; and a new score for Jean Epstein’s 1928 film The Fall of the House of Usher.

On 12 July 2025, London-based orchestra, New London Harmonia, conductor Oi Ching Chan, will be giving the premiere of Barber’s Ground Work and the London premiere of his Shut Up and Dance, along with Mussorgsky’s Night On Bare Mountain and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade in a programme at Holy Trinity, Sloane Street.

Barber’s 2019 orchestral piece Ground Work revisits some of the composer’s favourite musical haunts, notably the 17th century form of ‘ground bass’, together with the medieval musical technique of ‘isorhythm’. Shut Up and Dance was premiered in 1994 by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with conductor Grant Llewellyn at St David’s Hall, Cardiff. The title comes from New York nightclub, and the work works in various strands from non-European ideas as well as ‘popular’ dance music; African and Brazilian rhythms glide past Indonesian gamelan with the whole supported by African drumming. 

Founded in 2024 under the artistic direction of Oi Ching Chang, New London Harmonia brings together musicians who play at or near a professional level, with a mission to bring professional-level skills, deep musical knowledge, and an unmatched energy to classical music.

Further details of the concert from the New London Harmonia website.