Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Brighton Festival Chorus

Has climate change reached a tipping point? So asks Oscar-winning film and TV composer Rachel Portman’s new concerto for violin, narrator and orchestra. Featuring poems by Nick Drake, it forms the centrepiece of Grammy Award-winning maestro Ludovic Morlot’s nature-themed programme, poised between Sibelius’s orchestral hymn to the Finnish forests and American eco-activist composer John Luther Adams’s choral prayers to Mother Earth and her endangered species.

Born in west Sussex, England, Rachel Portman began composing at age 14 and read music at Oxford University. She gained experience writing music for drama in BBC and Channel 4 films including Mike Leigh's Four Days In July and Jim Henson's Storyteller series. Portman has written over 100 scores for film, television and theatre. She was the first female composer to win an Academy Award for her original score for Emma. She has received two further Academy nominations for The Cider House Rules and Chocolat, the latter also earned her a Golden Globe nomination.