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Huw Watkins : Lullaby
"Lullaby for piano trio starts quietly with a lilting, sad tune slowly emerging on the violin. As the music proceeds, the mood becomes more unsettled and anguished until a climatic C minor chord is heard on the piano. The music then slowly returns to the mood of the opening, until an uneasy conclusion is reached"

Biography

Huw Watkins was born in Wales in 1976 and studied at Chetham's School of Music, Manchester, where his piano teacher was Peter Lawson. He read music at King's College, Cambridge studying composition with Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr, and piano with Peter Pettinger. He went on to complete and MMus in composition at the Royal College of Music where he studied with Julian Anderson.

Huw Watkins has appeared regularly as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the country. In his 1999 Park Lane Group Young Artists Concert, he was described by The Independent on Sunday as "a pianist of alert intelligence and a composer with something to say". Highlights of the 199/2000 season included recitals with the oboist Nicholas Daniel and the clarinettist Emma Johnson. In March 2000 Huw played the solo piano part in Messiaen's Sept Haikai with the Northern Sinfonia at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. Also in March he gave the first London performance of his violin sonata at the Wigmore Hall with the violinist Daniel Bell. Huw has performed at the Cheltenham, Brighton and North Wales International festivals and has broadcast live on Radio 3.

In March 1999, the Nash Ensemble under Martyn Brabbins gave the first perfromance of Huw Watkins' Sonata for Cello and Eight instruments, which had been commissioned by Faber Music. The Times, in reviewing the piece, said that "at 22, Huw Watkins is already a composer to be reckoned with". In July 1999 the Vellinger Quartet performed his String Quartet at the Cheltenham Festival and the Wigmore Hall. In February 2000 the BBC National Orchestra of Wales gave the first performance of his Sinfonietta in Cardiff under Grant Llewellyn.