Page 35 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

International Piano Competition, and he gives its world premiere in April with the
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. It is one of Alberga’s highest-profile
commissions since she was awarded the OBE in 2021.

Alberga is a composer of great lyricism and dazzling imagination, and she has waited a
long time for the public recognition she deserves. The concerto represents the
culmination of a fascinating journey that has carried her from 50s Jamaica through the
British contemporary dance scene of the 70s and 80s to her intense focus on treading
her own musical path, regardless of fashion or fad.

Alberga herself is a diminutive figure, soft-spoken as she arrives for tea and cake in
Covent Garden. She is with her husband, the violinist Tom Bowes, who manages her
schedule from their home in the Herefordshire countryside; I have caught them while
they are in town to hear her Symphony Number One, Strata, in a concert by the Trinity
Laban College of Music’s orchestra. There is a dreaminess about Alberga that

sometimes finds Bowes jumping in with details of performance dates and titles – but
under her restrained and almost self-effacing presence, the composer has an incisive
clarity of vision and sense of focus. She chooses her direction carefully, then gives it
everything she has.

Pianist Alim Beisembayev, for whom Eleanor Alberga composed her new piano
concerto