'Music is nothing if it does not connect': an interview with Errollyn Wallen
Credit: Paul Tucker
Opening our momentous 80th Anniversary celebration on Wednesday 23 September at the Royal Albert Hall will be a piece that has been specially commissioned for the occasion: FLARE. Composed by Errollyn Wallen CBE, this musical outburst of energy and wonder will set the tone for the evening and the rest of our Anniversary Season.
Errollyn Wallen CBE is a multi award-winning Belize-born British composer, appointed Master of the King’s Music in August 2024. She has been named as one of the world’s top 20 most performed living classical composers. Her output includes over 20 operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber and vocal works, which are performed and broadcast throughout the world.
Read Errollyn's thoughts ahead of the premiere of FLARE this month.
What did the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's 80th anniversary mean to you as a composer, and how did this milestone shape your approach to writing FLARE?
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has a long and illustrious history and has made a huge impact on musical life in the UK and abroad. I was honoured to be asked to mark the occasion of its 80th Anniversary and, as always when I compose for orchestra, I wanted to make every section and every player shine.
The title FLARE suggests light, energy and illumination. What inspired the name of the piece and how does that idea come to life in the music?
I was replying to emails on my phone whilst sitting on a plane which was getting ready for take-off. I saw an email from RPO asking me for a title for the new piece and, just as I was about to reply – asking if I could have a little longer to think – the title FLARE popped into my mind.
A birthday involves candles and flame, light, energy – and excitement.
Your music often draws on a wide range of influences and tells compelling stories. Were there any particular places, memories or ideas that inspired this new piece?
When I compose I try to be honest and true so I’m always searching for the right notes, the right aural and physical associations in telling my stories. In this teeming world of ours we have all been exposed to a multitude of musics – and I simply let it all in.
In composing FLARE, I was very much composing to the visual space and atmosphere of the astonishing Royal Albert Hall, the place of so many remarkable memories for me.
Do you have any stand-out memories of your works being performed at the Royal Albert Hall?
I am fortunate to have had many premieres at the Royal Albert Hall. In 1998 my Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra was featured in the BBC Proms. I have joined the club of composers who have composed for both the First Night of the Proms (2025) and Last Night of the Proms (2020). Last year was actually quite a busy one for me at the Hall. REIGN, for choir of women and girls, commissioned by Women of the World was premiered and I gave the opening address to the Haringey Schools Music Festival. The piece I composed for First Night of the Proms last year, The Elements, featured in this year’s ‘Horrible Science’ Prom for children and their families. That was a very entertaining!
What kind of music is most meaningful for you to write as this current moment in your journey as a composer?
I am a very greedy composer and am always trying to fill in the gaps of things I haven’t composed for. I am ambitious for the notes in every work I write but it is vital to my journey that my music is as emotionally strong as it is technically assured.
Music is nothing if it does not connect.
I am currently putting the final touches to the orchestration of A Christmas Miracle, an opera for the whole community. The text is taken from the Chester Mystery Plays. A Christmas Miracle is being produced by Mahogany Opera and Britten Pears Arts and will premiere at Orford Church, Suffolk, on 20 November 2026 before going to St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney on 4 December. It is a huge project that has taken a couple of years to come to fruition but we are all so very excited about it.
You're invited to our 80th Anniversary celebration
Join us at the Royal Albert Hall with Vasily Petrenko, Julia Fischer, Pablo Ferrández and Jan Lisiecki this September.
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