Façade – An Entertainment is the focal point for this concert.  Dame Edith Sitwell’s extraordinary, surrealist and witty verses were set to music by a young William Walton, then brimming with energy and audacity.  The premiere was a succès de scandale.  Calling for narrator and a diverse set of instruments, this ‘entertainment’ is intentionally raucous and were once recited by Sitwell herself using a megaphone and from behind a screen.

The East London Music Group also gives the world premiere of a new work by QMUL Composer in Residence, Edward Nesbit.

QMUL Chamber Ensemble complements Walton’s work of 1918 with other British pieces from the same period, such as Edward Elgar’s haunting Sospiri and two poignant elegiac songs by John Ireland (Blow Out You Bugles) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (Bredon Hill).

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