Peter Wiegold has spent many years studing Indian and Gamelan music, playing with leading Indian musicians in the Gemini-Bhavan Ensemble and in the English Gamelan Orchestra.

He is currently Professor, Head of Music Research, at Brunel University. In 2007 Peter wrote a highly acclaimed large-scale work for the BBC Proms entitled, He is armoured without for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, musicians from Uzbekistan, the Coldstream Guards, 80 brass players plus solo trumpet and trombone. It was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society large-scale composition prize. Peter’s music is influenced by his strong interest in eastern philosophy, especially Buddhism.

Peter Wiegold’s music is a mixture of fully notated, freely improvised and anything in between – he often allows the performers to participate in the creative process. This is his first portrait recording on NMC.

Works on this disc include the plaintive, pastoral Earth, receive an honoured guest, for cor anglais and strings, inspired by WH Auden’s well known elegy for WB Yeats; the elemental Kalachakra for large ensemble depicting the creation of the universe using Tibetan bells and brass; and the bittersweet, Viennese Earth and Stars, commissioned for the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s death and featuring 4 harmonicas to represent an ancient funeral band, dug up from the soil by future generations.