After a six-month period of composition and a day of sessions with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer in early November 2025, Dramatico Records now presents Mike Batt’s passionate and dramatic first symphony
SYMPHONY No. 1 ‘Ukraine’ is dedicated to and inspired by the people of Ukraine, whilst also intended more broadly as a reflection on the conflict and suffering that is ever-present in modern world affairs. It is presented in four movements: Prelude / Blitzdream / Love and Loss / Hope with Strength and has a duration of 38 minutes.
Described variously as a “polymath”, a “renaissance man” and “one of the most colourful characters in the music business”, Mike Batt has led an extraordinarily vibrant and challenging life. He notes: “Throughout a long career immersing myself in multiple, fascinating musical arts – inhabiting a kind of hall-of-mirrors existence in which my identity and musical persona are often seen through a distorting lens of my own making – there has always been one abiding passion: the orchestra; its people, its music, its magic.”
The composer, lyricist, conductor and writer has waited until his 77th year to deliver his first symphony. Batt’s “abiding passion” for classical music started when he was eleven years old. Despite being born into a non-musical family, he would secretly ‘conduct’ a pile of furniture to Schubert’s Ninth Symphony on the gramophone, a record chosen from the Concert Hall Record Club. Without a score, he nonetheless convinced himself that he knew every instrumental entry and, in that moment in 1962, decided to become a ‘serious’ conductor and composer – an ambition derailed only months later by the arrival of the Beatles. From then on, his musical life became one of joyful turmoil. Entirely self-taught, he never received formal lessons in composition, orchestration, or conducting, instead learning through rehearsals and recording sessions with the orchestras with whom he worked early in his career and guided by other musicians, who were, at times, either kind or brutally honest.
As hit records followed, Batt combined commercial success with a distinctive orchestral sensibility, bringing richness and texture to his pop work. Viewing musical diversity as an opportunity, he has been particularly pleased when younger musicians, sometimes orchestral players, have told him that the music of the Wombles, composed by Batt, was often their first introduction to classical music.
Over time, Batt was commissioned to compose a wide range of works, from ambitious solo concept albums, often in collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra and including ‘Schizophonia’, ‘Tarot Suite’ and ‘Six Days in Berlin’ to scores for film and television. He has worked extensively with major orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and, in 1997, was commissioned to compose a work for the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, performed by the massed bands of the Household Guards with 100 pipers. In 1993, he conducted the first 20-bit digital recording of Holst’s The Planets Suite with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Watford Town Hall, whilst continuing to work across a broad spectrum of recording projects with leading contemporary artists from other genres, including Lemmy, Shane MacGowan, Hawkwind, Billy Connolly and Ozzy Osbourne, among many others.
Batt continues: “I always felt that a symphony would emerge at some point, and with this one I made a conscious decision to work with a purely orchestral palette, to simply let the piece speak clearly in its own voice. Rather than following prevailing trends, I’ve trusted my own instincts, aiming for a balance of clarity, expression and individuality and reflecting a musical language shaped by experience rather than convention”.
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Mike Batt’s Symphony No. 1 ‘Ukraine’ is released on Friday 5th June 2026
Label: Dramatico Records
Album Cat. No.s: CD-DRAMCD0112/LP-DRAMLP0026/Digital-DRAMDIG0315
TPT: 38′