One of the more striking younger composers to emerge from Wales in the last year or so has been Chris Petrie. At the age of twenty-three his own personal voice still continues to grow with each subsequent work, but even at this stage his music is marked by a darkness of expression, often drawing on urban images and sounds. His chamber opera (Perception.) (2009) is concerned with the question of identity, tracing the last journey of a young woman, intent on suicide in the lonely surroundings of the London Underground. More recently, music such as the orchestral work Percolation (2009: bbc National Orchestra of Wales) reveals a preoccupation with multi-layered strata-like textures. Petrie moved to Monmouth, South Wales, as a child and studied composition at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama before undertaking post-graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

from notes by Signum Classics © 2010