CHILTERN Youth Chamber Orchestra will be creating and premiering a new piece reflecting on the Syrian refugee crisis in collaboration with composer Alison Willis as part of Making Music’s ‘Adopt a Composer’ scheme.

The scheme pairs amateur ensembles with a composer for up to a year to create a new piece to be performed by the ensemble and recorded by BBC Radio3. It is run by Making Music in partnership with Sound and Music in association with BBC Radio 3 and funded by PRS for Music Foundation and the Philip and Dorothy Green Music Trust.

Alison, who comes from South Warnborough, near Odiham, said: “The piece will be created in response to the ongoing refugee crisis, with three separate movements each reflecting the events of a different week over the duration of the project with Chiltern Youth Chamber Orchestra members sharing their creative ideas with me throughout the process.”

The refugee crisis is made up of many thousands of individual stories and to reflect this Alison will also create a series of “satellite” pieces for solo instruments with piano accompaniment acting as individual stories that will then be combined into the full piece for string orchestra. These pieces will be available to download with all proceeds going to Save the Children.

Initial ideas from the first meeting between Alison and the orchestra on October 18 included focusing on young peoples’ stories, refugee situations from the past, and a theme of journeys.

The new work will be first performed in April next year with 50 per cent of the proceeds going to the Save the Children charity.