When guitarist Jacob Kellermann and conductor Christian Karlsen devised the present programme, one inspiration was the legendary jazz album Sketches of Spain on which Miles Davis performed arrangements of Spanish folk music, along with a version of the Adagio from Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez.

Rodrigo’s work is the perfect opening to Kellermann’s and Karlsen’s project, intended to conjure up Spain ‘as if through a prism - as a concept rather than a place’. In order to achieve this they have enlisted the help of Francisco Coll and Pete Harden, who have each contributed a concertante work. With Turia, Coll has returned to his roots, naming the work after the river that once flowed through his (and Rodrigo’s) hometown Valencia. His most ‘flamenco-coloured’ work so far ‘evoke(s) the light and the respective shadows’ of Spain. Turia is followed by two classics of Spanish music: Manuel de Falla’s Homenaje for solo guitar and Evocación by Isaac Albéniz, here in an arrangement for ensemble by Christian Karlsen.

Pete Harden who, with his British background and affinity to jazz and non-classical tradition, provides a voice from the outside. His Solace and Shimmer makes use of the series of chords that underpins Rodrigo’s Adagio (and Miles Davis’s Sketches), describing the work as ‘an impressionist ode to dry, southern European heat.‘ Kellermann is supported by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (in Concierto de Aranjuez) and the seven members of Norrbotten NEO.