The concert given by the Hallé Orchestra in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the First Stored-Program Computer was a program of English music, given as part of the Hallé Orchestra's Summer Prom season. The Britten and Vaughan-Williams pieces were written in the years just before 1948. The first piece was the winning piece in a competition organised by the University of Manchester Department of Music, to write a short piece appropriate to open the concert for this occasion.