CRITIC’S CHOICE

Ingrid Pearson Among recent first encounters with two works by James Macmillan (above), a performance of his clarinet concerto Ninian by Scottish clarinettist Adam Lee with the Royal College of Music Philharmonic was revelatory. Macmillan imagines episodes from the life of an eighthcentury Christian missionary to Scotland through mercurial solo clarinet timbres and kaleidoscopic orchestral sonorities. Inviting us to contemplate time as both process and monument, Ninian affirms the relevance of the concerto genre and the power of the symphony orchestra as a paradigm of musical unity.