Following Mark's trip to Argentina earlier this year the BBC National Chorus of Wales will premiere his new Patagonia-inspired work We Have Found a Better Land at Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff on the 15th November 2015. The concert features music by Welsh and Argentine composers and will be conducted by Adrian Partington. The performance will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3. For more information and to book tickets click here.

In June, Mark will be travelling to Argentina to visit the Welsh settlements in the Chubut Province in the far southern region of Patagonia. Mark has been commissioned by the BBC to compose a new work for the BBC National Chorus of Wales inspired by the events and stories surrounding the establishment of the colony in the 19th century. More details to follow!

Mark's new piece Five Memos for violin and piano, commissioned by London Music Masters for Hyeyoon Park and Huw Watkins, is inspired by the writings of the Italian author Italo Calvino and will be premiered at the Newbury Spring Festival on May 10th. Calvino was due to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures series at Harvard in 1985-6 but suddenly died before taking up the professorship. The incomplete scripts were published in 1988 as Six Memos for the Next Millennium. The five surviving essays explore artistic virtues that Calvino wanted to pass on to future generations.

PERFORMANCES
Hyeyoon Park violin, Huw Watkins piano
Sunday 10th May 7.30pm | St Mary's Church, Kintbury
Tickets

Hyeyoon Park violin, Roderick Chadwick piano
Tuesday 12th May 7.30pm | The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London
Tickets

The broadcast recording of the premiere performance of A Violence of Gifts is now available to listen to online as part of the BBC's Performing Miracles series.

A Violence of Gifts is a setting of a new text by poet Owen Sheers and was given its first performance on 18th April at St David's Hall in Cardiff by the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales with Elizabeth Atherton (soprano) and Roderick Williams (baritone) conducted by Martyn Brabbins.

Mark's new 40-minute work for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra, A Violence of Gifts, will be premiered on 18th April 7.30pm at St David's Hall, Cardiff by the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales with Elizabeth Atherton (soprano) and Roderick Williams (baritone) conducted by Martyn Brabbins. The work sets a new text by poet Owen Sheers and is paired with Holst's The Planets. Mark has been blogging about the project on the Radio 3 website. For further details and to book tickets visit BBC NOW.

The wonderful Fidelio Trio perform Mark's piano trio Airs No Oceans Keep as part of the St David's Hall Contemporary Lunchtime Concert on Saturday 4th April at 1pm alongside music by Donnacha Dennehy, Evan Ziporyn, Johannes Maria Staud and Orlando Jacinto Garcia. Further details here.

Following the successful premiere in Cardiff last December, Mark's second collaboration with choreographer Eleesha Drennan arrives in London on the 27th and 28th February at The Place. The evening-long work features three extraordinary dancers with music by John Woolrich, Andy Scott, Xenakis, Graham Fitkin and newly composed work by Mark.

The music will be performed live by Julian Warburton and Simon Haram. There will be a post-show discussion on the Friday evening with Mark and Eleesha chaired by the Royal Ballet's Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor.

More details and tickets here.

On Wednesday 21st January, the acclaimed Fidelio Trio – Darragh Morgan (violin), Adi Tal (cello) and Mary Dullea (piano) – will perform a lunchtime concert as part of their residency at St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra. Alongside music by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Percy Grainger they will present the Irish premiere of Mark's 2010 piano trio Airs No Ocean Keep, which they will be recording with NMC later this year. More details here. The trio will be giving further performances this month at the Boilerhouse Auditorium, Royal Holloway, University of London on Tuesday 27th January (details here) and at Rambert Dance Company, London on Thursday 29th January (details here).