Huw Watkins North American Premiere at Lincoln Center

On February 27, Lincoln Center's Great Performers series presents the North American Premiere of British composer Huw Watkins’ song cycle Look Down, Fair Moon with baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake at Alice Tully Hall. Watkins’ work utilizes texts from Walt Whitman, Thomas Hardy, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin. The composer comments:

It was Gerald Finley's fascination with all things lunar that prompted me to choose a collection of six moon-inspired poems to set for him. I have also wanted to write a song using the Larkin poem "Sad Steps" since I borrowed its title for a work for piano and string sextet I wrote in 2008. This poem has haunted me ever since, and its setting concludes the cycle.

Huw Watkins was Composer-in-Residence at this year’s Spannungen: Musik im Kraftwerk Heimbach Festival where the world premiere of his Speak Seven Seas, a trio commissioned for the occasion, was a festival highlight. The new work for clarinet, viola and piano takes its title from a line in Dylan Thomas' Author's Prologue and received its first performance by clarinetist Sebastian Manz, violist Florian Dondrer and the composer himself on piano last June at the Heimbach power station. Watkins currently holds the position of Jerwood Associate Composer at Music Theatre Wales.

For details on the performance at Alice Tully Hall, visit www.lincolncenter.org.

Huw Watkins-Composer Profile

Huw Watkins
Look Down, Fair Moon (2010/2011)
for baritone and piano
text (En) by Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas, Ted Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy and Philip Larkin
13’

Speak Seven Seas (2011)
for clarinet, viola and piano
12’