Throughout the 150th anniversary celebrations a special series of new works responding to RVW’s music, ideas, or life, were performed round the country. All the commissions were supported by the RVW Trust one of the VWF's founding charities. 2022 saw new works for brass band (by Philip Wilby for Brass Bands England), a dramatic cantata (by Julian Philips and Rebecca Hurst for Nova Music Trust and Presteigne Festival) and a songcycle written to partner RVW's Songs of Travel by composer Sarah Cattley setting poems by his cousin, Frances Cornford (performed by Roderick Williams and Susie Allan and jointly commissioned by Thaxted Music Festival and Music at Paxton Festival.)

Coming together to sing

Grace-Evangeline Mason, working with the Royal Philharmonic Society, wrote a new choral piece, A Memory of the Ocean, suitable for both professional and amateur choirs inspired by the music, ideas and life of RVW. The piece is a 20-minute work for a large choir of mixed voices, with accompaniment from piano and a solo stringed instrument. Its premiere performance was in June 2023 by the Bristol Choral Society and their Music Director Hilary Campbell. RVW received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1930 and was commissioned by the RPS to write his 9th Symphony.

Orchestral sonorities

The music of award-winning Bedford-based composer James B Wilson focuses on the rich textural, timbral and harmonic possibilities of acoustic instruments, and utilises sweeping strings. His RVW150 commission, Eden, was premiered by the CBSO and Andrew Gourlay n the opening concert of the 2023 Cheltenham Festival.

What the lark saw

The Three Choirs Festival, in RVW's home county of Gloucestershire, presented a new community- led creative programme in 2023 to conclude the RVW150 celebrations. What the Lark Saw combines different strands of RVW’s work, taking musical ideas from The Lark Ascending and folk song, and inspiration from Wordsworth’s description of the lark as a ‘pilgrim of the sky’. On a modern pilgrimage, (working with a collective of local artists, writers and performers), the project travelled out into communities to collect responses and ‘present day folk tales’. Bringing together these responses was a central song cycle/cantata created by Gloucestershire-based composer Liz Lane.