This concert begins and ends with works by Spanish composers.   One of the first composers to write prolifically for keyboard, Antonio de Cabezón was innovative and influential.   His works anticipated the potential of both the organ and clavichord — later explored to a greater degree by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and Manuel Rodrigues Coelho, both of whom were influenced by Cabezón — and his treatise on keyboard performance advocated the use of the thumb, which was unusual for the time. The present year is the five hundredth anniversary of his birth.

          Adam Gorb is a British composer whose works have been performed, broadcast and recorded worldwide. Notable pieces include Metropolis for wind band, which has won several prizes including the Walter Beeler Memorial Prize in the USA in 1994. Prelude, Interlude and Postlude for piano, won the Purcell Composition Prize in 1995. Kol Simcha, a ballet given over fifty performances by the Rambert Dance Company and Awayday (1996) for Wind Band which, along with Yiddish Dances, (1998) also for Wind Band have had thousands of performances world wide, and many commercial recordings. A Violin Sonata was premiered at the Spitalfields Festival in London in 1996. Reconciliation for Clarinet and Piano was commissioned for the Park Lane Young Artists New Year series in 1998, and Elements, a Percussion Concerto written for Evelyn Glennie and the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Ensemble in 1998 was released on CD in 2001. Since 1999 premieres have included a Clarinet Concerto for Nicholas Cox and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Weimar for chamber ensemble, also in 2000 and Downtown Diversions, a trombone concerto, in Texas in February 2001.
          Most recently a cantata Thoughts Scribbled on a Blank wall had its premiere in London in 2007, and two new wind band works: Midnight in Buenos Aires and Farewell have seen the light of day along with Serenade for Spring (2008) for small orchestra.
          Adam Gorb is Head of School of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

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Nčstor Bayona-Pifaré was born in Catalonia, and began his musical education at the age of six in Lleida's conservatoire with Jordi Benseny.   At seventeen, he came to Manchester to study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Helen Krizos, where he took a Master's degree, ending with a dissertation "How J.S. Bach's counterpoint has influenced the Second Viennese School".   At the RNCM, he was awarded the highest prize given by the college, the Gold Medal, and was a winner of the Piano Recital Prize and the Piano Duo Prize (together with the Spanish pianist Luis Becerra).

In 2007, Nčstor made his solo recital debut at the prestigious Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona. He has participated in the Bermuda Piano Festival and the Lichfield Festival, and performed at the Ebina Hall in Japan, the Wigmore Hall, and at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.

In 2008, Nčstor won a special prize in the Ibiza Piano Competition in which a member of the jury, Giovanni Doria Miglietta, invited him to perform in the festival Concerti in Villa Faravelli in Italy.