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Premiere of new symphony by Royal Ballet Sinfonia

A new symphony, composed by Dr Peter Flinn of the University's School of Music, was premiered in London recently by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, one of the Covent Garden orchestras.

The piece, titled simply, 'Symphony' was especially commissioned, and the orchestral performance sponsored by the Ida Carroll Trust. 'Symphony' will be conducted by Paul Murphy, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia Principal Conductor.

"It's really quite an honour to have a new orchestral work played for the first time by such a prestigious orchestra. I'm looking forward to hearing how the conductor and orchestra will have interpreted my score," says Flinn, who will be present to hear the piece.

"The Symphony combines modern techniques with a sense of character- quite violent in the case of the first movement, very gentle in the second, light-hearted and almost humorous in the third movement and stately and refined in the fourth and final movement. There are ideas shared between the movements, and the character of the movements are drawn out by the orchestration or combinations of instruments used, sometimes blended together, sometimes used for power and violence, as in the first movement, or using soloists from within the orchestra as in the second and fourth movements", explains Flinn.

This performance of the Symphony will form the core of a CD of compositions by Dr Peter Flinn, which will be available in the autumn under the Campion Cameo label's British Composers Series. Also on the CD will be a set of pieces for treble and tenor recorders and other pieces. The pieces reflect a number of compositions written by Flinn during a period of study leave earlier this year. These included a string quartet, "Lamentationes" for the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, a percussion quartet for 'Backbeat', a percussion group lead by the internationally acclaimed percussionist, Simon Rebello, a work for the North Wales Clarinet Choir, which was performed at the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales and an octet for mixed wind and string instruments written for the University's Resident Ensemble, Ensemble Cymru.

The Symphony will be published in the New Year by Chichester Music Press, who are publishers of Dr Flinn's works. Dr Peter Flinn lectures in Composition, Orchestration and History of Twentieth Century Music at the School of Music. He studied composition with William Mathias in Bangor and later with John Joubert in Birmingham. He has composed for brass band, brass ensembles, choir and orchestra in addition to a growing and impressive body of chamber music. His music has been performed extensively throughout Britain and in the USA and Europe.