The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is a Welsh symphony orchestra and one of the BBC's five professional radio orchestras. The BBC NOW is the only professional symphony orchestra organisation in Wales, occupying a dual role as both a broadcasting orchestra and national orchestra. The BBC NOW has its administrative base in Cardiff, at the BBC Hoddinott Hall on the site of the Wales Millennium Centre, since January 2009.
Alun Hoddinott CBE was a Welsh composer of classical music, one of the first to receive international recognition.
Susan Milan is an English professor of flute of the Royal College of Music, classical performer, recording artiste, composer, author and entrepreneur.
Morfydd Llwyn Owen was a Welsh composer, pianist and mezzo-soprano. A prolific composer, as well as a member of influential intellectual circles, she died shortly before her 27th birthday.
Grace Mary Williams was a Welsh composer, generally regarded as Wales's most notable female composer, and the first British woman to score a feature film.
Philip Cashian is an English composer. He is the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music.
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is a German chamber orchestra founded in East Berlin in 1982. Each year Akamus gives approximately 100 concerts, ranging from small chamber works to large-scale symphonic pieces in Europe's musical centers as well as on tours in Asia, North America and South America.
Howard Gordon Shelley is a British pianist and conductor. He was educated at Highgate School and the Royal College of Music. He was married to fellow pianist Hilary Macnamara, with whom he has performed and recorded in a two-piano partnership, and they have two sons.
David Evans was a Welsh musician, academic and composer.
David Wynne was a prolific Welsh composer, who taught for many years at Cardiff University and wrote much of his best-known music in retirement.
Grant Llewellyn is a Welsh conductor and music director of the North Carolina Symphony and Orchestre National de Bretagne.
Rhian Samuel is a Welsh woman composer who resided in the USA for many years. She has composed over 140 published works, including orchestral, chamber, vocal, and choral music. She now divides her time between mid-Wales and London.
The National Youth Orchestra of Wales is the national youth orchestra of Wales, based in Cardiff. Founded in 1945, it is the longest-standing national youth orchestra in the world.
Huw Thomas Watkins is a British composer and pianist. Born in South Wales, he studied piano and composition at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, where he received piano lessons from Peter Lawson. He then went on to read Music at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr, and completed an MMus in composition at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Julian Anderson. Huw Watkins was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he used to teach composition. He is currently Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal College of Music.
Britten Sinfonia is a chamber orchestra ensemble based in Cambridge, UK. It was created in 1992, following an initiative from Eastern Arts and a number of key figures including Nicholas Cleobury, who recognised the need for an orchestra in the East of England. It is a flexible ensemble composed of chamber musicians in Europe. The players are freelance musicians who are employed on a project-by-project basis and the ensemble performs around 70 concerts per year and works with hundreds of people in the communities where the orchestra is resident.
The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) is an amateur philharmonic orchestra based in Cardiff, Wales. The CPO played its first concert in 1982 and has since played over 250 concerts, primarily in Wales but also in England, Switzerland, and France. The CPO plays a wide range of music and appears regularly at Wales' premier concert hall, St. David's Hall.
Mark Eager is a London born conductor and former BBC National Orchestra of Wales Principal Trombone. He lives in Chelsea and Dorset, United Kingdom.
Matthew Jones is a British violist, violinist and composer primarily known for his international performance work as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He also holds a Viola Professorship and is Head of Chamber Music at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and runs an in-demand performance health consultancy practice. He is fluent in Italian.
Sinfonia Newydd, often referred to simply as SN, is a contemporary arts company, based in Cardiff. The company, a recent finalist of the Future Entrepreneur Award at the Wales Quality Awards 2011, specialises in innovating ways of delivering art, particularly music, of students in Wales. Sinfonia Newydd is currently based at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
This is a summary of the year 2018 in British music.
