ALEC ROTH (b. 1948) • VIKRAM SETH (b. 1952) : The Traveller • Earth and Sky. Ex Cathedra • Britten Sinfonia, Jeffrey Skidmore, conductor • Mark Padmore, tenor (THE POET); Philippe Honoré, violin (THE TRAVELLER) • Vayu Naidu, speaker, Ex Cathedra Senior Academy of Vocal Music & Scholars , James Keene, piano • Percussionists of the Britten Sinfonia, Jeffrey Skidmore, conductor.

Description: THE TRAVELLER for choir, children’s choir, orchestra, tenor, violin and speaker. The Traveller was the third in a series of four major works with words by Vikram Seth and music by Alec Roth, com- missioned jointly over four years by the Salisbury, Chelsea and Lichfield Festivals (2006-09). Each work featured the violinist Philippe Honoré as soloist, and each took a different geographical/cultur- al area as its starting point. EARTH AND SKY for children’s choir and piano (with optional percussion). Earth and Sky was commissioned by the BBC for the Proms 2000 season. In keeping with the millennial theme, a work presenting a vision of the future was requested. Trying to be helpful, the BBC provided me with a video containing the predictions of various experts, but their ideas seemed dizzyingly contradictory. -Alec Roth The seeming paradox is characteristic of Alec Roth’s music - somehow timeless, yet refreshingly new. Appealing to a wide audience, its surface simplicity is welcoming, while its underlying richness and depth reward repeated listening. His many collaborations with the writer Vikram Seth include a four-year sequence of works co-commissioned by the Salisbury, Chelsea and Lichfield Festivals (2006-9) featuring the solo violin of Philippe Honoré, including the oratorio The Traveller. Seth’s book The Rivered Earth (2011) describes their creative partnership, including an account of “the pleasures and pains of working with a composer”.