Dolgellau Music Club members enjoyed an evening in the company of oboist, Ewan Millar and pianist Tomos Boyles.

The club’s Ben Ridler attended, and was delighted with what he heard.

Commenting on the night, he said: “The composer Samuel Barber is quoted as saying about his 1978 Canzonetta Op.48 (his very last piece), “I like to give my best themes to the oboe”. Hearing the beauty of oboist Ewan Millar's playing in Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor on Friday, 5 December, in a close duo with pianist Tomos Boyles, it was easy to imagine that all the composers chosen might have said the same.”

He added: “This was a skilfully chosen programme, mixing arrangements with original compositions specific to the oboe, the familiar with the challenging, lyrical with spiky. Amongst the familiar was the piece with which in 2020 Ewan won the woodwind final of the BBC Young Musician Competition, Alessandro Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D minor. The slow movement is especially affecting, and its 2020 performance is still well worth hearing at Ewan Millar Oboe, his own YouTube channel. Similarly eloquent were his renderings of a movement from Bach's Cantata BWV12 Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's wistful variations on the African American spiritual Deep River.

“Nimble fingers were required in the accompaniment for Ravel's mercurial Sonatine (first written for oboe and string quartet), technical mastery fully in evidence from Tomos; Ewan's delicacy too perfectly conveyed what has been described as Ravel's love of 'exquisite moments caught in exquisite workmanship'. Lyricism was very much to the fore in a splendid set of arrangements made by Ewan and Tomos of songs by Fanny Mendelssohn, Lily Boulanger and Robert Schumann. Originally for French horn, Schumann's Adagio and Allegro worked well for oboe with piano, a satisfying piece that moves from romance to rousing fanfares.

“Less familiar to many will have been Gerald Finzi's Interlude (like the Ravel first written for oboe and string quartet), a dark piece with wonderful colours and harmonies. Good breath control is indispensable for all wind players, but it still seems phenomenal when deployed so masterfully by a player such as Ewan, not least in the aforementioned Canzonetta (also to be heard at his YouTube site). In essence a song, as its title suggests, the asperity of the piece's chromaticism in no way detracts from its warmth of line and tenderness of expression – all the more moving in light of the composer's terminal diagnosis at the time of writing.

“Bookending the whole evening were two oboe solos: first Pan and Arethusa from Britten's Six Metamorphoses After Ovid, so acutely written for the instrument; and finally, as an encore, a jazz impro that achieved some wild sonorities and held the audience spellbound. Warm thanks are due to the Countess of Munster Musical Trust for continuing to support such rising talent, and for sponsoring another event of real substance.”