The Proms organ. This coincided with the adoption of this lower pitch by other leading orchestras and concert series. Although the concerts gained a popular following and reputation, Newman went bankrupt in 1902, and the banker Edgar Speyer took over the expense of funding them. Wood received a knighthood in 1911. In 1914 anti-German feeling led Speyer to surrender his role, and music publishers Chappell & Co. took control of the concerts. Although Newman remained involved in artistic planning, it was Wood's name which became most closely associated with the Proms. As conductor from the first concert (which opened with Wagner's "Rienzi"
Aotearoa (overture) Aotearoa (overture) Aotearoa is a concert overture written for orchestra by New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn in the year 1940. The overture is one of three early works by Lilburn which center on the theme of national identity; the other two are 1944's "Landfall in Unknown Seas", for narrator and orchestra, and the tone poem "A Song of Islands" of 1946. The title of the overture ("Aotearoa") is taken from the Māori name for the islands. Lilburn wrote the overture while he was still a student at London's Royal College of Music, and it was premiered in Great Britain, at