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Raphael Wallfisch is one of the leading English cellists of his generation. His repertory is vast, taking in 19th century staples by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Dvorák, as well as 20th century standards by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Respighi, and Barber. Yet he has also focused much attention on works by British composers, too, from Elgar, Delius, and Bax to Maxwell Davies, MacMillan, Simpson, and Tavener. Wallfisch has recorded extensively for many labels, including Chandos, Nimbus, and Naxos.

Wallfisch was born in London on June 15, 1953. His mother was a cellist and his father a pianist. Young Raphael, after studies on the violin and piano, turned to the cello at age eight. His list of teachers is impressive: at home he studied with Amaryllis Fleming (1967-1969) and Derek Simpson (at the Royal Academy of Music from 1970-1973), and abroad with Amadeo Baldovino (Italy; 1969) and Gregor Piatigorsky (the U.S.).

It was through his studies with Piatigorsky in California that he was given the opportunity to perform in several private recitals with Jascha Heifetz. Wallfisch won first prize in Florence, Italy, at the Gaspar Cassadò International Cello Competition in 1977. Thereafter, his career grew in several directions: as a soloist he regularly appeared in recitals and with British orchestras; in 1980 he began a 12-year stint playing in a duo with his father, Peter, while serving as a professor of music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He would later teach cello at the Zürich Winterthur Konservatorium and Hochschule in Mainz, Germany.

In the 1980s Wallfisch gained an international reputation from his appearances throughout Europe and the U.S. In 1982 he started a long relationship with the English label Chandos: among his earliest recordings were a coupling of the Barber Cello Concerto and the Shostakovich First Cello Concerto (1982) and a disc of Tchaikovsky works that included the original version of the Rococo Variations (1983). Over the next decade or so he would make more than 20 recordings for Chandos. Since the 1990s he has branched out his recording activity to include other labels. Among later recordings is his two-disc set of the complete works for cello by Shostakovich on Nimbus (2006). Shostakovich was also featured, along with J.S. Bach and Tchaikovsky, in his successful concert tours of the U.K. and Germany in the fall of 2006. Further efforts included recordings of Zemlinsky's Cello Sonata (2007) and the cello sonatas of Chopin, Laks, and Szymanowski (2010).

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is an integral part of Welsh culture, giving frequent premieres of works by Welsh composers. The orchestra is often active beyond Wales, recording a variety of material that includes many BBC television soundtracks.

The origins of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales lay in the Cardiff Station Orchestra, which was founded in 1924. In 1928, it was renamed the National Orchestra of Wales. This orchestra dissolved under funding pressures in 1931 but was revived as the BBC Welsh Orchestra in 1935. Wartime restrictions led the orchestra to disband in 1939, but after the war, it was revived once again and grew consistently, from 31 members to 66 members by 1976, when it was renamed the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra. The group now has 78 members. It took its present name in 1993, and an associated chorus was also named the BBC National Chorus of Wales. Notable among the orchestra's performances have been some 50 world premieres, most of which have been of music by Welsh composers, including more than 20 by Alun Hoddinott, whose namesake Hoddinott Hall now houses the orchestra's administrative offices (its concerts mostly take place at St. David's Hall in Cardiff). The orchestra and chorus also gave the world premiere of Arvo Pärt's In spe in 2010. The orchestra has helped nurture several international conducting careers, including those of Richard Hickox (principal conductor from 2000-2006), Thierry Fischer (2006-2012), Thomas Søndergård (2012-2017), and Xian Zhang (2017-2020, the first female principal conductor of any BBC orchestra. Ryan Bancroft was named principal conductor in 2020; Lisa Tregale was named artistic director, becoming the first woman to hold the post.

The orchestra has a large catalog of more than 65 recordings that is by no means restricted to the music of Welsh composers. That total does not include BBC television soundtrack recordings for, among other programs, Doctor Who. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales has recorded for the Hyperion, BIS, and Chandos labels, as well as for Linn, where it released a complete cycle of Sibelius symphonies. The year 2014 saw the release of no fewer than seven recordings by the group. In 2020, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales was heard on Beethoven Reimagined, an album by composer/DJ Gabriel Prokofiev. ~ James Manheim

Conductor William Boughton has enjoyed equal success on both sides of the Atlantic. The founder of the English Symphony Orchestra, he serves as music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut.

Boughton was born in Birmingham, U.K., on December 18, 1948. His grandfather, Rutland Boughton, was a noted composer, and both his parents were musicians. He started as a cellist, studying at London's Guildhall School of Music, the Prague Academy of Music, and the New England Conservatory in Boston. He played cello in several British ensembles, but his interest shifted to conducting. In 1980, he founded the English String Orchestra in the city of Malvern; later, as the group began to play repertory for larger ensembles, it was renamed the English Symphony Orchestra and moved to Worcester. Boughton commissioned new works from many top British composers during his tenure and led the orchestra in an acclaimed series of recordings for the Nimbus label; his debut came in 1985 with the album Britten: Works for String Orchestra. In Malvern, Boughton became the artistic director of the Malvern Festival in 1983, collaborating with composer Michael Tippett in 1985 on a celebration of Tippett's 80th birthday.

In 1986, Boughton became the conductor of the Jyväskylä Symphony Orchestra in Finland, holding that post until 1993 and increasing the orchestra's audiences by some 60 percent with programming that mixed familiar works by Sibelius with new music. Boughton returned to Malvern in 1996 and again championed contemporary music in the festival's programming, organizing a celebration of composer Nicholas Maw's 60th birthday in 1995. Boughton continued to conduct the English Symphony Orchestra until the 2005-2006 season, offering a complete cycle of Beethoven's symphonies in his last year. From 2002 to 2008, he was the artistic director of the Nimbus Foundation; in that capacity, he created a new summer concert series at the nearby Wyastone Estate in Ganarew.

In the summer of 2007, Boughton returned to the U.S. to take the post of music director and conductor of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. He has continued to champion new music, beginning a new composer-in-residence program with Augusta Read Thomas as the first resident, and he received an ASCAP award for adventurous programming in 2011. With the orchestra, he also began a project to record the works of composer William Walton. In Britain, Boughton has made several recordings for the Lyrita label with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In 2018, he led the orchestra in an album of works by composer Thea Musgrave, celebrating her 90th birthday. Boughton has also taught at Yale University in New Haven, and in 2019, he stepped down from his New Haven Symphony post to become the music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra. In 2019 and 2020, Boughton issued several more recordings on Nimbus and Lyrita. He returned in 2024 with the Yale Symphony Orchestra on the album Paul Reale: American Mosaic. Boughton is also the founder and chair of Connecticut's Guilford Performing Arts Festival. ~ James Manheim