A new orchestral work by Charlotte Bray, A Dark Doorway, receives its world premiere at Philharmonie Berlin on 17 February. Commissioners Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and conductor Robin Ticciati present the work in a programme that also includes the love scene from Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette and a concert performance of Act II from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.

A Dark Doorway is dedicated to campaigner Diane Foley, whose son, the journalist James Wright Foley, was murdered by ISIS in 2014.

“Love and loss: a mother’s love for the son she has lost. He was taken from her far too soon, killed by ISIS. In an astonishing turn of events, principally because she wants him to know who her son was, she takes the staggering decision to confront his killer. Recounting Diane Foley’s story in his book, American Mother, Colum McCann writes of her son’s killer, ​‘It strikes her that he is a dark doorway: somewhere there, in front of her, her son waits’.” – Charlotte Bray