Blog Archives
CoMA concert Bristol
On Wednesday night this week I was lucky to be able to make it to the CoMA concert in Bristol. Chris Holley (pictured above) led the ensemble in the beautiful and acoustically generous Victoria rooms in Bristol. They gave very convincing performances over a range of different compositional styles and approaches. Hannah Kendall, Ailís Ní Ríain, and Zöe Martlew also had performances of their pieces written for CoMA which were all very impressive. It was good to hear contributions from Masters composition students from University of Bristol, each of whom had to grapple with the challenges of writing for open-score ensembles.
Codi Buddies Partnership announced!
Very excited to be able to announce that myself and Côr Aduniad have been selected for one of these CoDI Buddies partnerships. The piece will be quite experimental in nature and I am looking forward to working on it with MD Wayne Beecham and the choir. It will definitely be a new way of performing for the choir and I am very interested in what we find out along the way! Congratulations to all the other successful partnerships too!
CBSO concert, Birmingham
Last evening I was able to attend the postponed CoMA concert from March this year (remember that unseasonal snow!?). The People’s Orchestra, conducted by Dan Watson, were in great form, and they played my piece ‘Hummingbird’ excellently. It was lovely to meet their members and to get to chat about the importance of music-making for everyone. It was also lovely to talk with fellow composers Ailís Ní Ríain and Nigel Osborne, who both had excellent performances too. I believe that a recording was made so I will post it when it becomes available.
Miniature Moments
The South Iceland Chamber Choir has commissioned me as part of their upcoming concert series ‘Miniature Moments’. The brief was to write a piece for between 5 and 90 seconds, which is much harder than it sounds! On October 6th the choir will board a bus that takes it to different historical locations in its home region. Six short pieces will be performed at each location with the choir facing each cardinal point. I will update you when I have more information but I hope they enjoy performing my piece, and it will probably be the only one in Welsh I guess!
Cinderella takes a summer holiday!
Ballet Cymru has just finished their summer tour of Cinderella. I have just updated my bandcamp page with the new soundtrack so you can download it for free (or choose to pay for it if you’re feeling generous!). Click here to listen and download!
The company will be continuing their tour of this ballet in the Autumn – a full list can be found here – they’ve been getting some really great reviews of the production so make sure you get the chance to see them perform because they are excellent. Photo credits: Sian Trenberth.
LGMC Concert 15th/16th June 2018
I was very privileged to hear the London Gay Men’s Chorus perform my piece ‘Nothing and Everything’ last night at the Cadogan Hall, London. It was a lovely concert programme with lots of successful arrangements, making for a very varied programme indeed. The choir performed the piece very emotionally and I would like to thank all involved for choosing the piece and working on it so well! Best of luck for tonight’s performance!
BASCA selection for ECCO
I was delighted to learn last week that my orchestral piece ‘Digital Dust’ has been shortlisted by BASCA for submission to the ECCO board. I will learn whether or not the piece has been selected next month. I do not know what my chances are like, but I am very proud of the piece and if you would like to hear it you can through this link (Digital Dust).
P.A.R.A.D.E. Livestream tonight!
Tonight the entire performance of P.A.R.A.D.E. will livestream on Facebook at 7pm. I wrote the music for the outdoor performance by manipulating the BBC NOW’s recording of Satie’s ‘Parade’ – look out for a Musak version of the main themes accompanying the indoor performances at the Wales Millennium Centre by tuning in tonight.
Cinderella revived!
On May 11th and 12th Ballet Cymru will be performing a new ballet to my score for Cinderella. I have been working on a version with live instruments and also revising the version which will accompany the company on their national tour (see www.welshballet.co.uk for a complete list of dates and venues). With a new set and costumes I am very much looking forward to seeing the production and working with the musicians on the night!
Writing Sea Shanties!
Tin Shed Theatre Co. have recently been awarded Arts Council Wales funding to support a five week period of practical exploration, developing their ongoing project, Moby Dick On The Transporter Bridge, in Pillgwenlly, Newport. As part of this I was brought in to work with their cast to write a sea shanty and a sea hymn. We were able to create these works in the morning and I will be watching closely to see the fruits of this exciting R & D process. It’s a great feeling to work collaboratively!
Jack White 