New Music Biennial 2025 | the-carice-singers

Major commission for New Music Biennial 2025

We are thrilled to announce the commission of a major new work from Daniel Kidane for PRS Foundation's New Music Biennial 2025. This marks a new development in our relationship with Daniel, having worked closely with him since 2021 on Composer Academies for Cheltenham Music Festival and the Three Choirs Festival.

Kidane's new work, N'dehou, takes its name from a Central African bamboo flute which was brought to the attention of a wider audience by the Cameroonian musicologist Francis Bebey (1929-2001). Bebey's efforts to promote cultural exchange (as UNESCO's General Manager for Music) share a strong affinity with the stories involved in Bradford's year as UK City of Culture.

N'dehou will be one of twenty pieces of new music performed across two festival weekends in Bradford (6th-8th June 2025) and London's Southbank Centre (4th-6th July 2025), broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and available for download from NMC Recordings.

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Daniel Kidane. Image: Kaupo Kikkas

Daniel Kidane‘s music has been performed extensively across the UK and abroad as well as being broadcast on BBC Radio 3, described by the Financial Times as "quietly impressive" and by The Times as "tautly constructed" and "vibrantly imagined". He studied at the Royal College of Music Junior Department, in St Petersburg, and at the RNCM. He received an honorary doctorate from Coventry University in 2022 and teaches composition at the RNCM and Cambridge University. Recent highlights include the world premieres of Sun Poem, premiered by the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle, and a Violin Concerto, premiered by Julia Fischer.

I am very excited to be collaborating with the wonderful Carice Singers on such a special project. The New Music Biennial is a celebration of UK culture and creativity, and I'm honoured to be bringing a new work to Bradford and beyond.

Daniel Kidane

Francis Bebey's career as a groundbreaking musician developed alongside his work in broadcasting and as an international civil servant at UNESCO, where he later became General Manager for Music.

In this video, filmed while Bebey was recording at the Real World Studios in 1995, he tells us about the n'dehou and demonstrates how it is used for a 'conversation between man and his own musical instrument'.

Many thanks to PRS Foundation, Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, Southbank Centre, BBC Radio 3, NMC Recordings, Arts Council England, and all the many partners and supporters who have made the New Music Biennial possible!