American composer Dominick Argento celebrates his 70th birthday this month. To mark the occasion, the Ensemble Singers of Minnesota, conducted by Philip Brunelle, perform works exploring 200 years of American music. The programme includes the UK premiere of Argento's Keats settings A Nation of Cowslips. Jeremy Summerly introduces the concert, given at the BOC Covent Garden Festival in June. and is joined by Robert Ziegler to set the scene. They begin with the work of the pioneering 18th-century composer William Billings and continue into the 19th and 20th centuries with music by Arthur Foote, Virgil Thomson and Leonard Bernstein.