The BBC National Orchestra of Wales performs from its home at Hoddinott Concert Hall in the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, under the baton of one of the world's most exciting young conductors, Marta Gardolinska. The concert fittingly opens with the Overture by Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz. Bacewicz was a trailblazer in early 20th-century music, a celebrated female composer who wrote this work in 1943 when her country was under Nazi occupation. The sense of struggle and combat is heard within the piece with the opening rumble of the timpani, the beat of the snare drum and the brass section playing fanfares. The work also contains a musical message of hope, with the Morse code for ‘V' (dot dot dot dash), beaten out on the timpani during the piece, symbolising victory.