British composer Joseph Phibbs and the BBC Symphony Orchestra have been awarded a commissioning grant by the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation for a new orchestra work. The premiere of the new piece will take place on May 21, 2016 at the Barbican in London and will be conducted by Sakari Oramo.

In the past, the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation has awarded commissions to composers including Béla Bartók, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Francis Poulenc, Arnold Schönberg and Igor Stravinsky.

Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949, was a leading advocate of contemporary music. He established the foundation to continue his lifelong commitment to composers and new music.

British composer Joseph Phibbs was educated in the UK and at Cornell University in New York State. His orchestral music has been performed by such conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen and Leonard Slatkin. His large-scale work Rivers to the Sea was premiered to critical acclaim by the Philharmonia Orchestra, later winning the 2013 British Composer Awards.