On the 17th June tuba player Jack Adler-McKean will perform a new piece of mine, La Belle Captive at his Gold Medal Recital at the RNCM. The Gold Medal recitals see 12 of the RNCM's top performers compete for the Gold Medal award. The piece: Taking its name from a painting by René Magritte, 'La Belle Captive' sees the tuba and...
Violinist Conway Kuo (pictured) is to play my Étude in Glissandi at a concert in New York on the 15 May, part of the Vox Novus Fifteen Minutes of Fame concert series. Conway, the Associate Principal Second Violin of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and a First Violinist with the New York City Opera Orchestra, will perform 15 solo...
I have been selected to participate in The Opera Group's 'Emerging Composers and Writers Mentoring Project'. The two-day session will see 15 composers and 15 writers develop ideas and skills relating to the writing of opera, at Guildhall School of Music and Drama on the 9th and 10th of April. Glyndebourne Opera composer-in-residence Julian Philips (pictured) will lead the Masterclass for...
This Tuesday sees the premiere of a new piece of mine, Ludovico's Harp. The piece is written for performance at Manchester's International Anthony Burgess Foundation, in response to the author's novel A Clockwork Orange, in the 50th anniversary of its completion. The piece is rather unusually scored for 6 male voices with 12 tremolo harmonicas (they're equipped with two each)....
Two performances this week to tell you about this week...
The brilliant Quatuor Danel are workshopping three pieces by University of Manchester Masters composers on Thursday. My piece is called 'Atavice', and is a short piece for string quartet conceived as a study for a larger work. Its six sections are related by a four-note chord and an isorhythm that is explored in various ways, before ending in a continuous...
The University of Manchester Chamber Orchestra are premiering a new piece of mine on Saturday night at 7.30 at the Cosmo Rodewald Hall, Manchester. The piece is entitled Ex Machinis, and features pianists Keith McAlister and Hanne Ely, and will be conducted by Tom Jarvis (a picture from the rehearsals is below). Here's the programme note: Ex Machinis is a concerto...
Firstly, the Manchester Camerata workshopped my arrangement of the folk song The Snows they Melt the Soonest yesterday with folksinger Bella Hardy at the RNCM. The workshop was conducted by Eduardo Portal, and judged by composer Howard Skempton (that's him in the picture perusing my score). Bella and the Camerata will now play my piece in public on the 17th...
This week sees the premiere of 'Seven Face Pictures' in Manchester by Trio Atem (that's them on the right). Scored for mezzo-soprano, flute and cello, it's a breakneck song cycle of seven songs in ten minutes, setting the poetry of Caroline Bird. One hitch though – due to time restrictions, at Friday's performance we might have to only do six...