Davies’s own instrument, the horn, has always occupied a special place in her music – buzzing away abrasively in her Falling Angel for ensemble, or crying out with yearning in her orchestral labyrinth Wild Card – but it will be especially spotlighted in her next major project, a concerto for four horns and orchestra. Co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra and the Warsaw Autumn Festival (where Davies’s trumpet concerto Spiral House was received with acclaim in 2014) the 20-minute work was the brainchild of Esa-Pekka Salonen, who will conduct the premiere and who is himself a horn player.
Davies is also writing a solo horn work for Musikfabrik’s Christine Chapman