Chineke! Orchestra & Dame Evelyn Glennie

The orchestra combines with percussion and double bass to perform a London premiere.

Across the Divide is a concerto written for percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE (who is also the founder of Chineke!).

Its composer, Jill Jarman, draws on both classical and jazz in her work.

This concerto is about communication and how we convey meaning without words. It brings the ‘background instruments’ of the orchestra to the fore.

It was inspired by Chi-chi Nwanoku’s story of how, as a child staying with her family in Nigeria, she would sometimes wake in the night to the sound of distant drumming.

This was the traditional means of relaying messages between villages: to herald a birth, celebrate an event or to warn of danger.

Another London premiere in this concert is James B Wilson's Free-Man.

The piece was commissioned by St George's Bristol in May 2019. It commemorates the actions of Dr Paul Stephenson and others who campaigned to end racial discrimination during the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycotts.

The concert also includes four giants of British music of the late 19th and early 20th century: Coleridge-Taylor, Elgar, Holst and Vaughan Williams.

The work of this generation of composers paints a soundscape of the Britain of their day. It takes in the bustle of urban London and the romance of the countryside.

In this performance, it displays the virtuosity of the string players in orchestral and solo configurations.