Prom 71: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies September 8, 2009

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has written choral works throughout his career. To celebrate his 75th birthday today, the BBC Singers and their Chief Conductor David Hill devote their Late Night Prom exclusively to his music.

The virtuosic and technically challenging Westerlings, premiered by the BBC Singers in 1977, consists of four songs to texts by the Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown, interspersed with wordless seascapes and capped by a concluding prayer in Old Norse, the ancient language of Sir Peter's adopted Orkney home.

Also setting texts by Brown, Solstice of Light is a major cantata with organ, charting the whole history of the Orkneys and ending in an invocation to St Magnus, the islands' patron saint.

There will be no interval

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Westerlings (15 mins)
Solstice of Light (50 mins)

Ed Lyon tenor
David Goode organ
BBC Singers
David Hill conductor

Official Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2009/whatson/0809.shtml#prom71