Britain's Orchestra Nova is an arm of the Nova Music Trust, which also presents opera, commissions new works, and develops the careers of singers and instrumentalists. Not to be confused with similarly named orchestras in Australia and a defunct one in the U.S., Orchestra Nova has backed Nova Music Trust's operatic productions as well as performing and recording contemporary instrumental works. Orchestra Nova, Nova Music Opera, and the Nova Music Trust were all brainchildren of conductor George Vass, a veteran of the British orchestral scene who has been committed to new music to an unusual degree, and was dubbed "the saviour of contemporary classical music" by the BBC Radio 3 network. The Nova Music organizations have continued that emphasis. Orchestra Nova was founded in 2001. The group has played orchestral concerts around the U.K., appearing in 2013 at the Proms at St Jude's in London and, in 2018, in a program of American music at St John Smith's Square in London. Orchestra Nova has collaborated with several major English choirs and mounted concerts twice annually with the St. Albans Choral Society; these performances have mostly featured mainstream repertory, including Handel's Messiah, rather than contemporary music. The orchestra's most frequent concert activity in the 2010s, however, has involved productions by Nova Music Opera, beginning in 2010 with a production of Gustav Holst's Savitri at the English Music Festival. Many of these have been newly commissioned operas, including Airborne by Cecilia McDowall and Drown'd by Stephen McNeff (both 2014), Entanglement by Charlotte Bray (2015), and Juliana by Joseph Phibbs (2018), based on August Strindberg's play Miss Julie. Orchestra Nova's recordings have involved contemporary British repertory; they include The Heavens and the Heart, an album devoted to music of James Francis Brown (2018). Orchestra Nova has recorded for Dutton Laboratories, Toccata Classics, Guild, and Resonus Classics. ~ James Manheim