Families with children aged 7+ are invited to get close to the BCMG musicians and listen to beautiful music in the Families@4 concert. A relaxed, hour-long, late-afternoon concert created especially for families, Families@4 includes a sparkling collection of short pieces of by composers Elliott Carter, Helen Grime and Pierre Boulez.

Nancy Evans, Director of Learning and Participation at BCMG, commented, “Families@4 is an opportunity for all the family to experience the best classical music of our time. Audiences can learn about how music can be composed by starting with a short fragment of music and then playing it backwards or upside down, or how the letters of someone’s name can be turned into sound. Each piece is composed for a different colourful combination of instruments – meet the musicians and learn about the instruments they play.”

Later in the evening, BCMG present a concert centred on the music of Helen Grime. Virtuosic pianist Huw Watkins performs the world premiere of Grime’s Piano Concerto – a BCMG Sound Investment co-commission with the Wigmore Hall. The programme also includes Grime’s first BCMG co-commission, A Cold Spring (2009) and works by Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez and Peter Maxwell Davies.

BCMG’s relationship with Helen Grime stretches back to the 2009 premiere of her three-movement work A Cold Spring. One of the UK’s leading young composers, Grime’s music was performed at the BBC Proms and Aldeburgh Music Festival in 2015.