McDowall and McNeff premieres

Cecilia McDowall is a composer whose work I have followed both enjoyed and performed, so it was with great interest that I read that her opera Airborne is being premiered by Nova Music Opera, conductor George Vass, in a double bill with Stephen McNeff's Prometheus Drowned. Directed by Richard Williams, the two operas are being premiered at Rosslyn Hill Chapel, NW3 1NG (29,30,31 July) before being performed at the Presteigne Festival (21/8), Canterbury Festival (26/10) and at the Barber Institute, Birmingham (1/11).

McDowall's Airborne sets a libretto by Andy Rashleigh and involves a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War, who falls in love with a nurse. Whilst McNeff's Prometheus Drown'd, to a libretto by Richard Williams, looks at the strange circumstances surrounding the death of the poet Shelly.