An exciting opportunity to create a new musical work. The NCEM, working in partnership with the singer Ruby Hughes, former BBC New Generation Artist, and archlute player Jonas Nordberg, is commissioning a new piece to be performed by Ruby and Jonas in the NCEM’s 2026 York Early Music Christmas Festival, on 13th December 2026.
The composer selected to write the Carol Commission is NCEM Young Composer Award alumnus Owain Park who alongside a successful composing career has also gone on to direct and conduct many ensembles, including his own, the award winning Gesualdo Six.
Ruby Hughes
“Hughes can turn her voice from tender to raw, revealing different colours like glass held to the light” Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
Former BBC New Generation Artist, winner of both First Prize and Audience Prize at London's 2009 Handel Singing Competition, Ruby Hughes, through her blossoming catalogue of recordings and lovingly curated performances, has become known for her interpretations of the music of the baroque and 20th and 21st Century.
A passionate programmer, curator and collaborator, she and Jonas Nordberg have forged a particularly close musical relationship working on many beautiful recital projects and recordings together in recent years.
Ruby’s love for performing new repertoire has also led to her becoming a champion of contemporary composers and she is delighted to be working with the NCEM and Owain Park to create this new commission. The inspiration for the work comes from the soundworld which Ruby inhabits and the harmonic language presented in the rest of the programme being presented by Ruby and Jonas in the Christmas Festival. The piece will explore themes of spirituality, the message of Christ and the love that Jesus gave the world.
You can find out more about Ruby and Jonas’ upcoming concert in the York Christmas Festival here: ncem.co.uk/yemcf
Jonas Nordberg
Swedish lutenist Jonas Nordberg is a graduate of the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg (MA, 2011) and Stockholm’s Royal College of Music. He is in high demand as both a soloist and an ensemble musician, performing music from the early Renaissance to the Romantic era, on a wide range of historical plucked instruments including Renaissance lutes, Baroque lutes and guitars, archlutes, theorbos and early 19th-century guitars.
He often works with singers, and past and present recital partners include Ruby Hughes, Susanne Rydén, Elin Rombo, Lena-Susanne Norin and Christina Larsson-Malmberg. He also takes a keen interest in dramatic art and contemporary dance, as demonstrated by a highly productive association with choreographer Kenneth Kvarnström. Together they have created several large-scale stage works and toured them around Europe, with Nordberg as lute soloist, music curator and even, on occasion, dancer.
Owain Park – Composer
NCEM Young Composer Award alumnus Owain Park was born in Bristol in 1993.
His compositions are published by Novello, and have been performed internationally by ensembles including the Tallis Scholars and Aurora Orchestra.
While at Cambridge University he studied orchestration with John Rutter, before undertaking a Masters degree in composition. He is Composer-in-Residence with the London Choral Sinfonia, and was one of BBC Radio 3’s 31 under 31 Young Stars.
The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge recorded an album of his compositions, which was nominated for the BBC Music Magazine Awards. In 2023 Battle Cry, a collaborative album from mezzo Helen Charlston and theorbist Toby Carr, featuring his composition as the title track, won the Gramophone Award for Best Concept Album.
As well as being a successful composer, Owain is Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers and maintains a busy schedule of conducting projects with various ensembles. His own vocal consort, The Gesualdo Six, tours extensively around the world and has been praised for its interpretations of Renaissance and contemporary music.
Owain has a prolific catalogue of compositions which you can find here on his website:
owainpark.co.uk/composing
