91Èȱ¬

Commissioned by the 91Èȱ¬ and performed tonight for the first time, Philip Grange’s Violin Concerto takes flight into the world around us. At times, it’s inspired by massed forces from nature: swarms of bees and murmurations of starlings, plagues of locusts and clouds of bats. But, at others, the soloist – violin virtuoso Carolin Widmann – is left isolated and alone. Stravinsky’s singing nightingale soars away to the court of a Chinese emperor in his predictably unpredictable ballet, before Tchaikovsky’s bold and beguiling First Symphony heralds the imminent arrival of the fierce Manchester winter.