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| Libby Croad (Photo: Alexander Barnes) |
On Sunday 22 June 2025, Brighton Festival Chorus and City of London Sinfonia join forces at Cadogan Hall under the baton on James Morgan for a concert that features Duruflé’s Requiem, Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending (with violinist Alexandra Wood) and Fantasia on Greensleeves, plus the UK premiere of British composer Libby Croad‘s The Brontë Suite.
Libby wrote The Brontë Suite in January 2024, she was on sabbatical and as she loved the Brontë sisters’ poems the idea of a piece based on them had been in the back of her head and the time seemed right. She effectively had free reign as there was no commission and she wrote it for choir and string quartet, figuring that was a nicely economic line-up.
The piece uses three poems, Emily’s Spellbound, Anne’s A Reminiscence and Charlotte’s Life. The three poems are not technically meant to be together but Libby feels that their themes of life, love and loss work well.
In fact, choirs asked her about a string orchestra version and it was this version which was used at the work’s premiere by the Willoughby Symphony Choir in Sydney, Australia in March 2025 and will be used on 22 June. Ironically, the original version for choir and string quartet has yet to get an outing.
When I ask about her musical style, she comments that someone in another choir she was working with said that her music sounds very English. She admits that she likes a good melody, which is not wildly fashionable at the moment. She starts with the text, then melody and she loves scrunchy harmonies, using quite a lot of modes. She trained as a violinist and feels that you can tell this with her string writing, she likes something juicy that you can get your teeth into.
Her first study at the Royal Academy of Music was violin, with composition as second study. On leaving college, she focused on the violin but felt that something was missing. In 2016 she rekindled her writing and though she loves the violin and still plays, composition is the dream. But she feels that the two strands of her musical life help each. She comments that she has just finished playing the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet whilst at the same time writing a new work of her own, and the influences feed into each other. She loves the way the two can interact, and says that she could not be a composer in an ivory tower.
She is pleased that her composing has really taken off and she now has a waiting list.
Unsurprisingly, her inspirations include RVW and Elgar, but also Rachmaninov whose Symphony No. 2 she has fond memories of playing in the youth orchestra. At college, her teacher was Gareth Wilson (who is now at Girton College). He was a great encouragement to her writing, he commissioned her first choral piece for his choir in Chelsea when she was still at college. She realised that she loved writing music and he helped her develop her writing.
The day before the London concert she has a premiere in Nottingham, The Nightingale for choir and strings, setting Walter de la Mare’s poem King David. This is for the charity, Music for Everyone, with whom Libby has worked before and this new piece is about the healing power of music which will be performed by Nottingham Chamber Singers and Nottingham Chamber Players at a concert celebrating the choir’s 40th birthday, further details.
She has just finished music for a play, the first time she has written for the theatre and it was an amazing experience. The play is Chronically Hopeful, a multi-disciplinary piece about unseen disability being developed by Musici Ireland. A workshop performance of the piece took place in Bray, Ireland a few days after I chatted to Libby with a big performance planned for the Autumn.
Next up, she is starting a new commission for the Dionysus Ensemble, for string quartet, flute and harp. The theme of the work is river safety and it will be part of a project the ensemble is doing with local children.
Libby Croad: The Brontë Suite
Duruflé: Requiem
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Greensleeves
Alexandra Wood (violin)
Brighton Festival Chorus
City of London Sinfonia
James Morgan (conductor)
22 June 2025
Full details from the Cadogan Hall website.
