The culmination of Nico Muhly’s year as Kings Place’s Composer in Focus brings together Britten Sinfonia and Pekka Kuusisto in music by Muhly, Bach and Purcell, revealing unexpected connections between Baroque masterpieces and Muhly’s distinctive voice.

As Kings Place’s Composer in Focus for 2027, Nico Muhly brings his residency to a close in the company of two of today’s most imaginative musical forces: Britten Sinfonia and violinist Pekka Kuusisto. Renowned for its adventurous programming and exceptional artistry, Britten Sinfonia joins Kuusisto, a performer celebrated for his creative freedom and genre-defying musicianship, in a programme centred on two of Muhly’s most compelling works.

At its heart is Shrink, a dazzling violin concerto written especially for Kuusisto, alongside the richly textured Impossible Things. Both showcase Muhly’s distinctive ability to combine intricate detail with emotional immediacy. Together, they reveal a composer who draws inspiration from the past while creating a musical language entirely his own.

Framing Muhly’s works are selections from Purcell’s exquisite Fantasias and Bach’s exhilarating Third Brandenburg Concerto, music whose craftsmanship, energy and invention continue to resonate centuries after they were written. Heard alongside Muhly’s music, they illuminate surprising connections across time, tracing a creative lineage that links Baroque innovation to contemporary imagination.

Bringing together one of Britain’s most admired chamber orchestras, one of today’s most original composers and one of the most compelling performers on the international stage, this concert offers a fitting and celebratory culmination to an extraordinary year-long residency.

This event will last approximately 110 minutes, including an interval.

About Nico Muhly

Nico Muhly (b. 1981) composes orchestral, chamber and sacred music, operas, and scores for film, theatre, television and site-specific collaborations. He has been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera (Two Boys and Marnie), Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (including a concerto grosso), the Philharmonie de Paris (a concerto for two pianos for Katia and Marielle Labèque), and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he is Composer-in-Residence.

He has collaborated with choreographers Kyle Abraham, Benjamin Millepied and Justin Peck, and his vocal collaborators include Iestyn Davies, Renée Fleming and Nicholas Phan. Among his concertos are works for violin (Pekka Kuusisto and Renaud Capuçon), viola (Nadia Sirota), trumpet (Tine Thing Helseth), organ (James McVinnie) and piano (Alexandre Tharaud).

He has been Composer-in-Residence at Christ Church, Oxford since 2026, and the same year saw single-composer releases from Magdalen College, Oxford, and The Tallis Scholars.

About Britten Sinfonia

“One of the UK’s top 10 orchestras” (The Telegraph, 2026), Britten Sinfonia creates impactful and inspirational musical experiences through its adventurous programming and innovative formats, such as its immersive Surround Sound Playlist, as well as through projects created especially for school pupils, hospital patients and local communities.

Rooted in the East of England, where it is the only professional orchestra working throughout the region, Britten Sinfonia enjoys a national and international reputation as one of today’s finest ensembles. Described as “innovative as always” (The Guardian, 2025), it is equally renowned for the remarkable breadth of its collaborations, from Steve Reich, Mahan Esfahani and Sarah Connolly to Anoushka Shankar, Jacob Collier and Pagrav Dance Company, and for its nurturing of new compositional voices. Over three decades, Britten Sinfonia has premiered nearly 300 new works.

Britten Sinfonia’s main concert activity is in London, Saffron Walden, Cambridge and Norwich, and it also performs in Bury St Edmunds, Ely, Peterborough and Chelmsford. The orchestra regularly appears at London’s Wigmore Hall and at UK festivals including Aldeburgh, Brighton, Norfolk & Norwich and the BBC Proms. Its prolific discography includes many award-winning recordings on labels such as Harmonia Mundi, Chandos, Warner and Hyperion.

About Pekka Kuusisto 

Pekka Kuusisto is internationally recognised for his visionary artistry, creative freedom and genre-defying approach to performance, establishing him as one of today’s most distinctive musical voices. A violinist, conductor and composer, he is Artistic Director of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Co-Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

This season, Kuusisto continues his work with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, presents projects with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra across Europe, and appears as guest conductor with leading orchestras including the Oslo Philharmonic, Basel Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist, he performs with orchestras including the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Konzerthausorchester Berlin.

Recent highlights include performances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Berliner Philharmoniker, San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo and Boston Symphony Orchestra.

A leading advocate for contemporary music, Kuusisto has premiered works by composers including Thomas Adès, Anna Clyne, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, Ellen Reid, Philip Venables and Sauli Zinovjev. Renowned for his adventurous collaborations, he regularly works across artistic disciplines, bringing together classical, folk, jazz and experimental influences.

His recent recordings include Willows with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Bryce Dessner’s SOLOS, Anna Clyne and The Knights’ Shorthand, and First Light, featuring the world premiere recording of Nico Muhly’s violin concerto Shrink.