Through the fading hour - Viola concerto (2021-22)

Through the fading hour has been written for the London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers Programme 2021/22 especially for violists Richard Waters and David Quiggle.

Through the fading hour explores the light qualities and colours that we see during the twilight hours, with the onsetting of darkness and the fading of light. We might also see this moment as the twilight hour of the earth, at least with our presence on it, as the realities of climate change become increasingly evident. The piece emerged from one of my own poems:
Through the fading hour
Whispers morph and mould
A flickering light gives one last breath Before being blown into the ether
c.9 mins
Angela Elizabeth Slater

Viola Concerto Through The Fading Hour

2022-08-13 1100AM CD1

The edge of things

Daybreak of dusk has been written for the 'Piece a day project' project at the Tanglewood Music Festival 2022.

Daybreak of dusk for cello and piano

a tulip, iron for soprano, tenor, violin, viola and cello
by Angela Elizabeth Slater (2023) text by Kendra Preston Leonard
Note from librettist Kendra Preston Leonard:
a tulip, iron is about the fear and horror created by psychological and emotional abuse, the relief of escape from abuse, and the work required to contend with traumatic memories of it. Using Perle Fine’s work The Early Morning Garden (1957) as a focusing device for this lyric, I work with elements of the natural world as well as my own personal history. The mezzo soprano and tenor serve as protagonist and antagonist, respectfully, and I’ve made it deliberately unclear as to whether their texts and interactions are taking place in the present or are memories. The text is in three loose sections, through which the protagonist moves from fear and intense self-doubt into greater agency, grapples with the causes and extent of her wounds, recognizes how trauma has shaped her, and becomes able to distance herself from it. The antagonist diminishes and humiliates the protagonist, causing her to hesitate and sing in fragments of sentences. He calls her simple and an embarrassment, disparaging her mind and body and abilities, even as she begins to communicate more fully and lyrically and draws on
a wider world for her outlook. Finally, he—or the memory of his words and actions—falls silent, becoming nothing to the protagonist, as she leaves the scene—or memory—with self- determination.
Note from the composer Angela Elizabeth Slater:
When I approached Kendra for a unique text to set, I asked her to explore memory as something difficult, questioning why certain things happened the way they happened, questioning yourself and whether things were your own fault. I wanted the text to draw on the deep intense emotions that still bubble over the surface from the bullying and gaslighting. I experienced at school.
I have found this text deeply emotionally powerful to set. Alongside this, I engaged with the visual stimulus of Perle Fine's work The Early Morning Garden. Taken together, these helped me find a soundworld that is a mixture of fragility and strength, whilst exploring the nuances of colours and distinct gestural shapes for both the string players and the vocalists. The piece should be treated as an imagined scene from a larger narrative trajectory set ambiguously in memory or somewhere real; perhaps it is both.

Sandrine Schau, soprano
Louis Tiemann, tenor
Lovisa Ehrenkrona, violin
Nicholas Algot Swensen, viola
Tom Pickles, cello

CREATIVE DIALOGUE FRANCE 2023
Concert de clôture, Saint Florent le Vieil 27.8.2023

a tulip, iron for soprano, tenor, violin, viola and cello

Distorted Light for string quartet 2020 (revised 2022 and 2023)

Distorted Light explores the idea of light being distorted through different prisms create spectrums of colour. This is evoked through rhythmic pulsating patterns on harmonics that keep changing the shift of the harmony and emphasis of pitch. A melody of sorts is created across the quartet through the passing of these accented moments.

The cello's entries gradually begin to dissipate these pulsating harmonics with fierce and emotive solo material, that are then punctuated by small glimmers of material related to the opening material. These punctuations gradually transform into less defined material allowing the lines to interweave in a more fluid manner than before. The pulsating harmonic material little by little begins to make its presence known once again before distorting into the strident melody first heard in the cello earlier in the piece, but now almost a memory presented across the ensemble and continous disingtegrating into timbral explorations or harmonic pulsations.

c.8-9 minutes

Angela Elizabeth Slater

Performance Viano quartet on 2nd July 2023 at Hong Kong City Theatre

Distorted Light 2023 Angela E Slater

Punch, echo for alto saxophone and piano (2020)
Punch: to strike with the fist. Echo: a sound or sounds caused by the reflection of sound
waves from a surface back to the listener.
This work draws on the meaning of the words ‘punch’ and ‘echo’, representing these through the lens of Laban’s eight efforts. Laban movement analysis is a method and language for describing, interpreting and documenting human movement. I feel a deep connection between the gestural language of movement and music. Laban categorises movement into eight efforts, descriptively named Float, Punch (Thrust), Glide, Slash, Dab, Wring, Flick, and Press. In this work I explore the effort of ‘punch’ on both macro and micro levels, exploring the musical impact of a ‘punch’ and its subsequent aftermath, the echo effect

Angela Slater - Punch Echo

Shut out the Noise for solo percussionist (2021)

Shut out the Noise is a new solo work for percussion, written especially for Iris van den Bos as part of the
Arts Council England funded projected Connected skies: solo series challenge. In this project, composer
Angela Elizabeth Slater has set out to write six new works for double bass, cello, flute, accordion, percussion and mezzo soprano between October 2020-May 2021.

Shut out the Noise is the fifth piece in the Connected skies collection of solo works. All the pieces are
relective of the difficult times of 2020 and 2021, drawing on a poem authored by the composer, Shut out
the Noise explores the feeling of being overwhelmed by the news, social media and the situation of Covid-19.


When the sky enclosed around me
Shrinking ever smaller
I found woven half dreams
fractured in spaces inbetween
which ache and screams
I tried to shut the noise out
but it echoed right back at me
never to leave or fully be

Performed by percussionist Iris van den Bos

Shut out the Noise for solo percussion

for String Quartet

Juncture was premiered at the Second International Conference on Women’s Work in Music at Bangor University on September 5, 2019 by the Illuminate String Quartet

Juncture (2019 revision)

(for mezzo-soprano and large ensemble)

Behind the Pattern was premiered by Britten-Pears Contemporary Ensemble, Jonathan Berman, conductor, Aldeburgh Festival, England, UK

Behind The Pattern

Performed by Rose Hegele

Programme note:
Never to leave is the final work in the Connected skies collection of solo pieces. All the pieces are reflective of the difficult times of 2020 and 2021, drawing on a poem authored by the composer, Never to leave sets this poem that has been the unifying link between all the pieces. It is reflective of our times but also references the previous five works as though completing a song cycle.
​
When the sky enclosed around me
​Shrinking ever smaller
I found woven half dreams
fractured in spaces inbetween
which ache and screams
I tried to shut the noise out
but it echoed right back at me
never to leave or fully be
Total length c. 10 mins

Never to Leave for mezzo soprano

Twice Removed for SSA (2018)
Twice Removed (for three female voices - SSA) was written for the Juice ensemble for the Cheltenham Composers Academy 2018. The piece is a dramatic setting of a new text by the poet and playwright Helene Grøn. The piece explores the themes of loss, the loss of people, the loss of innocence and yourself leading to a feeling of disconnection from the world and from who you once were – therefore being twice removed. The text is split between the inner feelings of a woman and her outward conversations as she tries to conform with society, essentially creating two voices from the text that act in juxtaposition to each other. The third voice, sung by the alto, captures words from text of the inner voice sung by Sop 1 creating another inner voice with darker more pointed thoughts.
The three voices come together as one at the end, 'Just tired,Yes from work' showing that all layers of this woman's thoughts know deep down that she must conform to society and project an image of being fine.

Twice removed

Dr. Angela Elizabeth Slater is a UK-based composer, whose compositional voice focuses on musically mapping aspects of the natural world into the fabric of music. Nominated for an Ivors Classical Award for her work, Through the Fading Hour, her music has been described as ‘intricate...and often ravishingly scored’ and  making ‘deft and vivid use of instrumental colour’.. Slater collaborates with performers, ensembles, and initiatives worldwide to musically explore sounds, colours, and textures.

Slater’s recent creative projects include fellowships at the Modern Music Festival, with performances of Glass dominoes for mixed ensemble and Gathering the tide for orchestra; Hong Kong Intimacy of Creativity Festival, working with the Viano Quartet on Distorted Light; Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, for a commission of Where skies aflame, written for the Flux quartet; and Creative Dialogues Festival, for the world premiere of a tulip, iron. She has previously held Composition Fellowships at Tanglewood Music Center, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Society, Royal Scottish National Orchestra Composers’ Hub, Stockholm Chamber Brass Academy, Impulse Festival, Young Composers Meeting. She is also the receipt of the Mendelssohn Scholarship Award and is an ISCM World Music Days Nominee.

Unravelling the Crimson Sky will be a featured work on the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming album, Sounds New. Additional upcoming collaborations include Arbor Concerto, a consortium for accordion and chamber orchestra led by Sanja Mlinarič, Mountains become oceans, a consortium for percussion and harp led by Rosanna Moore and Hannah Weaver, and an expansion of As the moon runs red into a trumpet concerto with wind ensemble led by Simon Debruslais. Past collaboration highlights include working with Laura Farré Rozada  and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra on piano concerto, Tautening skies and with Richard Waters and the London Philharmonic Orchestra on the world premiere of her viola concerto, Through the fading hour.

​Slater is also the Director of Illuminate Women’s Music, a chamber music concert series designed to celebrate the creativity of women composers and performers, as well as exploring the rich legacy of music written by women historically. Her works are self-published, with select works published by Composers Edition and Babel Scores. Please visit https://www.angelaslatercomposer.co.uk/ for more information.
For more information please visit: https://angelaslatercomposer.co.uk

https://linktr.ee/AngelaElizabethSlatercomposer


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Distorted Light 2023 Angela E Slater

Angela Elizabeth Slater

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