Peter Stark - Edwin Roxburgh: Saturn

Roxburgh's Clarinet Concerto features soloist Linda Merrick in a work of symphonic scope and expressivity; she is accompanied by the Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer.In Saturn - a tribute to Holst, Roxburgh's predecessor at the Royal College of Music - Roxburgh explores the mythical characters of its moons and satellites in a series of orchestral showpieces which culminates in the wild abandon, and percussive onslaught, of Saturn itself; Hertfordshire County Youth Orchestra is conducted by Peter Stark.'Saturn is an epic orchestral and electronic space-scape, effortlessly blending Roxburgh's understanding of Boulez and Stockhausen with a Birtwistle-like sense of ritual. An orbiting soprano saxophone beams down ideas to an orchestral underlay dominated by clattering percussion and mind-expanding electronics; this is an extraordinarily ballsy mission undertaken by HCYO.' The Wire, 2006