14 September 2026

Scoring: 2(2nd+picc).2.2.2-4.2.3.0-timps.2perc-strings

Duration: c. 5 minutes

Availability of performing materials: Directly from the composer at https://www.adriennespilsbury.com/

This month’s blog is an interview with composer Adrienne Spilsbury who has recently written a piece for Blackpool Symphony Orchestra called Into the Day. The first performance will take place on 20th September 2026 at The Grand Theatre, Blackpool.

H: Adrienne, please can you tell me about how the commission came about?

A: It was through Helen Harrison who's the conductor of Blackpool Symphony Orchestra. Helen is a great champion of music by Northern composers and women composers. I wasn't quite Northern enough for her [laughing], I'm from North Wales, which I think she regards as a bit southern! But anyway, she let me in.

Blackpool SO did some of my First Suite for Strings at a string playday last January and I met Helen a couple of times. She generously made a slot available in this Autumn’s Proms concert, so that's how the commission came about.

H: And what sort of parameters did she set?

A: Well, firstly, I asked her about the orchestration. I did ask if she'd have at least one percussion player. But apart from the length - five minutes - Helen didn't really set any parameters. I did ask her about the style and anything else but she said, ‘just do what you want’. But I do like some parameters. It's really helpful to have some parameters so I invented a few more for myself.

I was thinking, well, these guys will have been away on holiday for weeks. They've got a concert on the 20th of September, which is quite early in the season. They've probably only got time for a couple of rehearsals for the programme before the concert day so I can't write anything that's too challenging or intricate or anything like that. I thought, I need to write something that's...perhaps straightforward is the wrong word...but just doesn't require a lot of putting together.

Also, especially, I think, in a Proms concert, you want to involve everyone. You don't really want the brass sitting there, twiddling their thumbs. I wanted something that would involve everybody to some extent and, as I say, not be too difficult to put together, and fit into a Proms concert which is, generally, straightforward emotionally, if you like. So, that's where I started.

H: Then, of course, what do you actually write? That's the hard bit.

A: I have to say, I wasn't sure for quite some time. Was it fast-paced? Was it a slow-paced? I tried a couple of things and the thing that seemed to want to develop was this idea, this slower idea. Just that very first phrase from the piece. You know, those flute-falling phrases and the little Glock notes. It's the sparkle at the beginning.

H: Yes. It reminded me of Britten’s ‘Moonlight’ from his Four Sea Interludes.

A: Yeah. I'm definitely in that British tradition from Elgar, Walton, Tippett, Britten. You can't get away from Britten, particularly as a string player which I am. That influence is very much there in my music and I'm very happy to be part of that. I do feel as if I'm part of a composer community even if some of those people are no longer with us.

When you start composing, you don't know what your own style is. You may have written things, pastiche things, in the style of whoever but what's your own style? And you don't actually know. The First Suite for Strings that I mentioned was one of the first things I wrote after a fallow period, in about 2007-2008. For a while I was working, children, and all that. So that was one of my first newer compositions. I've tried a few things but I discovered, really, I’m very much in the British tradition...sometimes there's a bit of Shostakovich creeps in, perhaps.

H: I think some of your orchestration has the warmth of film scores as well.

A: Yes. I think there's very much part of it. You think of composers like Doreen Carwithen who's featured in this same concert, Malcolm Arnold, Vaughan Williams…they all wrote film scores.

H: Yes. In fact, my last blog was about Doreen Carwithen’s Suffolk Suite which was originally written as a score to a British Transport film and then re-written as an orchestral suite for Framlingham School.

A: So that’s how it came about.

H: I have got to know Into the Day as an oboe player with Blackpool SO. I really enjoyed the first run through. It was relatively easy to put together. We ran through it and it worked.

A: I was hoping it would be very straightforward. There may be some intonation things, especially those octaves jumps at the beginning.

H: Yes. We did do a little bit of work on that. And some of the, you know, the scrunchier chords. It certainly has some lovely scrunchy brass chords. And there really is something for everybody to do.

A: It's quite a showcase for the orchestra. Like that bit for solo bassoon!

H: That really comes out of nowhere!

A: Well, I was told your bassoonist likes those kind of things. [laughs]

H: Thank you, Adrienne, for talking to me today about Into the Day. I’m really looking forward to performing it with Blackpool Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Helen Harrison, on the 20th of September at the Grand Theatre in Blackpool. Here’s wishing you a successful premiere and many more performances to come.