I had a fantastic week last week taking part in the Development week of the Cohan Collective. I was collaborating with choreographer Josh Ben-Tovim and composer Hollie Harding, creating a new 15-minute piece ‘Enemy of the Stars’. Looking forward to seeing how the project develops…
There have been a bunch of good reviews for Liz Kenny’s new Linn release ‘Ars Longa’ which includes my Extending from the inside. She’s also been performing the piece all over the place including at Aldeburgh Festival and in Cleveland. You can read some of the comments about my piece on my press page.
I’m excited to have a new piece, Drip Feed, premiered by the amazing harpsichordist Jane Chapman on 11 June at Baffi Portswood as part of PLAYLIST. I will also be playing piano in the PLAYLIST Collective, in which we will perform tracks from Miles Davis’ seminal album ‘Birth of the Cool’.
Video now online of the premiere of my Changing Up + for solo percussionist and large ensemble from the recent SHIFTS project at Turner Sims. Joley Cragg totally nailed the percussion as did the HARTLEY Loop Orchestra, which features students and staff from the University of Southampton Music Department.
I’m really delighted that Pythagoras’ Toolkit, led by Ensemble Paramirabo (Montreal) and involving me as co-creator, composer and conductor, has been awarded funding from the Canadian Council for the Arts.
In Pythagoras’ Toolkit Rachel Warr (co-creator/director, Dotted Line Theatre) and I will bring to life, through puppetry and live music, a modern-day Pythagoras who will explore sound, space (conceptual/sound/realworld), rhythm, harmony and dissonance (order and chaos), instrument making/design, dance, musical textures and ways of constructing music.
The production, currently planning for a tour in 2021, will feature musicians from Ensemble Paramirabo (Canada), Workers Union Ensemble (UK) and two musically literate puppeteers working with a specially created Pythagoras puppet.
Rachel and I are concocting ideas already… more soon!
I’m putting the finishing touches on a new piece for solo harpsichord for Jane Chapman. Premiere date to be confirmed but likely in late 2019 or early 2020. Watch this space!
Superstar theorbo player Liz Kenny has recorded my Extending from the inside (2014) for her new solo CD coming out on Linn Records this summer. She is doing a prestige tour to promote the disc taking in Cleveland Institute of Music, Aldeburgh Festival, Oxford Festival of the Arts and the Wigmore Hall.
I’m conducting Mendelssohn V in a few weeks time (11 May 2019) with SU Sinfonietta. Really looking forward to doing some old music…!
It was great to perform The Virus Within: Hearing HIV with Workers Union Ensemble and Chad Swanson at Turner Sims as part of the University of Southampton Science and Engineering Day 2019.
Some lovely feedback from the audience including:
” A fascinating window in composition”
” Amazing innovation. Meaningful. Science in musical language”
“Intellectual synethesia ending with hope”
My colleague Jeanice Brooks got some fantastic photos too…
Back in 2015 I wrote a piece with the amazing poet Luke Wright for the London Sinfonietta, which we performed at Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was a great experience and I’m delighted that our collaboration will continue as we develop a new piece for, and with, Riot Ensemble over the coming year or so. The first stage of development is 2 days together in mid-September to try out some ideas and get things moving. This will happen at my stomping ground at the University of Southampton and is possible thanks to Riot Ensemble’s Arts Council funding and some support from the University. Big thanks to Aaron Holloway-Nahum for believing in the project and being so supportive.
Exciting to see what happens!
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