Ar hyn of bryd mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
Ar hyn of bryd mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
Ar hyn of bryd mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
+44 (0)29 2063 5640
Paul Mealor
composer, lecturer and Artistic Director of the North Wales International Music Festival
The 2026 North Wales International Music Festival runs from 10-19 September.
Your symphonic writing combines a strong sense of structure with a distinctive lyrical voice. Looking back over your career, how has your approach to writing for orchestra evolved, and what do you feel a symphony can express today that no other musical form can?
HW: I’ve been fortunate enough to have been given many opportunities to write for orchestra. I think it would have been impossible for my approach to evolve without that practical experience; and I am hugely grateful for that. I feel like a symphony can express something, to a sympathetic listener, quite ineffable.
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Christopher Williams
pianist
Christopher Williams's new album Franz Liszt: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 70 - Marches is released next month on Naxos
As a pianist and composer, how has the legacy of Franz Liszt inspired and influenced you?
HW: Liszt is a composer whose music I have played much less than I would have liked. I would say, however, that I have been inspired enormously by his compatriot, Bartók.
Sarah Lianne Lewis
composer
You’ve written a number of concertos; how have the collaborations differed with the soloists, and how does your interaction with the soloist during the writing period inform the musical material you create for both them and the orchestra?
HW: I’ve been very lucky to write concertos for some absolutely sensational musicians. The fact that they’ve been so accomplished has meant that I’ve rarely had to change anything, even what I might have guessed would be rather challenging passages.
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Rhian Samuel
composer and educator
Rhian Samuel's Of Swans, Snails and Geese (texts by May Sarton), will be performed by Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral on 26 July.
From what singer with whom you’ve worked did you learn the most? (And what was it?)
HW: Impossible to say! Each singer I’ve worked with has taught me something different (and unique).
Guto Pryderi Puw
composer, lecturer, and Artistic Director of the Bangor Music Festival
Following the success of both Crime Fiction and In the Locked Room, what draws you to opera as a genre and how it might develop in the future?
HW: Its directness, and the way in it offers (or should offer) an audience less familiar with music. I’m afraid that the future of opera looks rather bleak at the moment.
Deborah Keyser
Tŷ Cerdd Director
You have enjoyed long and successful collaborations with various artists including Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Ruby Hughes and Nicholas Daniel. Are there any other musicians, either living or historical, with whom you would like to perform?
HW: I would love to have played two-piano music with Britten.
Kiko Shao
composer & lecturer
With the growing influence of AI in music, are there any new creative directions or collaborations that you are particularly keen to explore over the next decade?
HW: I’m very worried that AI will reduce the number of jobs for both composers and instrumentalists. I think we will have to fight to keep working over the next decades.
UPCOMING UK PERFORMANCES
17 August: Welburn , The Festival Marquee
Oboe Quartet (World Premiere)
18 August: St Mary's Church, Lastingham, York
28 August: St Andrew's Church, Presteigne, Wales
18 September: Leicester Museum and Art Gallery
19 September: Pilsdon Barn, West Malling
3 December: Wigmore Hall, London
27 December: Wigmore Hall, London