BBC Symphony Orchestra Maida Vale Concerts 2023/24 Karlsen conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra

Swedish conductor Christian Karlsen makes his debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for this free evening studio concert at Maida Vale – with music by five composers.

American Gabriella Smith was inspired by the hallucinatory sounds of the Pacific Ocean breaking on a Californian beach. The works by Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi and Icelander Daniel Bjarnason were premiered in February by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in a concert highlighting the preciousness and vulnerability of sea life.

Swede Anders Hillborg was on a river in the Maldives, drifting in a small boat along the edge of the coral reef to whirlpool. “I was sucked into this and rotated with all these thousands of fish…” And the piece features Chinese oboes.

And young Serbian cellist Petar Pejčić joins the orchestra to perform the UK premiere of Đuro Živković’s mesmerising cello concerto Unceasing Prayers, commissioned by Swedish Radio. The piece was inspired by the 19th-century Russian book The Way of a Pilgrim which recounts the narrator's journey as a mendicant pilgrim across Russia.