To celebrate the 80th Birthday of its Patron, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Manchester’s premier new music ensemble Psappha released a recording of Eight Songs for a Mad King on vinyl and digitally with soloist Kelvin Thomas. The recording was made in 2012 and was supervised by the composer, making this the first recording of the work to have had the direct involvement of the composer since the 1971 recording by his own ensemble The Fires of London. Psappha has performed Eight Songs for a Mad King more than 70 times and has worked closely with the composer to fine-tune its performance to be as close as possible to what he intended. © Psappha