Three Pieces Workshopped

Three pieces of mine are being workshopped in the coming weeks – a smallish one in Wales on Thursday, a rather large one in London on Monday, and a medium one in London on the 25th.

Monday the 18th brings my first workshop with the BBC Symphony Orchestra as part of my Sound and Music Embedded residency. My piece, under the working title Codex (Homage to Serafini) after the wonderful Codex Seraphinianus by the eccentric Italian artist Luigi Serafini, will be workshopped by the orchestra under the baton of Garry Walker at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios. The orchestra will also read through music by Ben Oliver and Aaron Holloway-Nahum, ahead of the premiere of all three pieces in November.

Before that on Thursday, Psappha will workshop Enimimés II: Aller-Mümsige Burggoven, as part of the Bangor New Music Festival. The piece is a new ‘translation’ for flute, piano, viola and cello of my earlier piece, Enmîmés sont les gougebosqueux. The new subtitle comes from Robert Scott’s German translation of Carroll’s Jabberwocky, rather than the corresponding line in Frank Warrin’s French translation. Psappha will also be workshopping pieces by Sarah Lianne Lewis and Steel Stylianou, and will select one of the pieces as the winner of the ‘William Mathias Composition Prize’, to be played in their evening concert.

Finally, having been awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize, I’ve been at work on an ensemble work for members of the Philharmonia Orchestra to be conducted by Rüdiger Bohn. Currently titled ‘Seven Perpetual Motions’, my piece gets a dry run on the 25th March in a workshop taken by Simon Bainbridge. The premiere will be given at the Royal Festival Hall on the 27th June, alongside works by Arne Gieshoff and Christopher McAteer.