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What does it mean to return—not to repeat, but to see and hear anew?

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In this concert, we trace a quiet line through time: from Johann Sebastian Bach, through Nadia Boulanger, to Aaron Copland. For Boulanger, Bach was not a monument of the past, but a living language—something to be spoken, shaped, and carried forward. Through her, this inheritance moved across generations, transformed in new hands, new ears—among them Copland.

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At the centre of the programme stands Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, a work suspended between stillness and motion. Its sound world unfolds gradually, from inward reflection to a rhythm touched by jazz—restless, luminous, alive. Around it, music by Bach, Boulanger, and Igor Stravinsky appears like shifting reflections, circling the same question: how can something be renewed without losing what it is?

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'On Returning' is music that comes back to us—not as repetition, but as recognition. As something distant drawing near. As something known, heard as if for the first time.

Tuesday 16 March, 7pm

University Aula

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