‘Fastness’ is the brand new album of orchestral works by British composer Nicholas Simpson, released Friday 3rd March on the MPR label. The title track sees saxophone soloist Huw Wiggin join Manchester Camerata under the baton of the composer. Huw Wiggin’s virtuosity comes to the fore in Fastness, an emotional concerto for soprano saxophone and strings, based on the life and loss of Simpson’s great friend and expedition companion. The solo saxophone dominates the opening exchanges with a cadenza before gradually receding to a single repeated bird-call as the strings lament the loss of its earlier brilliance. The remainder of the disc comprises three more of Simpson’s orchestral works. He Was Despised is a set of variations on a famous theme from Handel’s Messiah, which takes a humorously introspective view of the composer’s own life and shortcomings. In Bachianas Mancuniensis, Simpson proposes a Baroque dance suite with a Mancunian gloss, which he intends to be “heard by people who had gone out intent on having a good time, and performed by people who liked to enjoy what they were doing”. Little Suite is based on one of Simpson’s choral works, Angelus, a setting of words by Kathleen Raine, which he has expanded and rearranged for strings, citing inspiration from Sibelius as well as the influence of Nielsen evident in the work’s title. Since winning First Prize and Gold Medal at the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition in 2014, Huw Wiggin has become one of the most popular saxophonists of his generation. He has performed in venues as far afield as the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing as well as those closer to home such as London’s Wigmore Hall. Huw’s debut disc, ‘Reflections’, was released on Orchid Classics in 2018, reaching no. 2 in the UK Specialist Classical Chart and no. 6 in the iTunes Classical Chart. Huw is a member of the prize-winning Ferio Saxophone Quartet, and regularly performs with them in the UK and abroad. Nicholas Simpson was born in Manchester. He read law at Nottingham University, and played guitar in rock bands before studying for four years with John Tavener at Trinity College of Music in London. In the 1990s Simpson practised as a criminal lawyer in London, but quit to be a professional musician on moving back to Manchester in 1998. His music has been widely played in Europe and the USA. He is Music Director of the Halifax Symphony Orchestra in West Yorkshire, the Athenean Ensemble in Manchester and Associate Conductor of the Huddersfield Philharmonic.

c. Sally Richardson 2023