Drive My Toy Car
(An arrangement of Drive My Car by the Beatles)
for piano solo (also available for toy piano solo)
c. 5 mins
2015

This is the solo piano version of Chris Corcoran's toy piano arrangement of the classic Beatles song. The original  version for toy piano was commissioned by the Non-Piano/Toy Piano festival in 2015. Taking the song both back to its blues roots and simultaneously to new frontiers, this arrangement re-instates the heavy blues shuffle rhythm that the Beatles did away with while also adding complex chromatic structures to its harmonies. The result is a whimsical but also grooving and lyrical homage that teases listeners with run-away bass lines and spontaneous rhythmic shifts.

Performed by Martin Butler at Club Inégales, December 2015.

Chris Corcoran – Drive My Toy Car (version for solo piano) (2015)

for chamber orchestra
Instrumentation: picc, fl, ob, Bb bass cl, bsn, 2 hn, 2 C tpt, 2 perc (glock., SD), pno, strings
Duration: c. 5 min
Year: 2011

Using rhythms from contemporary dance music, the piece at times asserts and subverts the underlying beat by changing the rhythmic ratios, abruptly slowing down or speeding up the music. The result is a haunting effect that reveals the usually hidden fine grain of the orchestral sound spectrum, as if individual harmonies and textures were suddenly being watched in slow motion.

Slow Motion – A Game of Pulse and Time (2011) (MIDI realisation)

for chamber ensemble
Instrumentation: oboe, horn, violin, cello, marimba
Duration: c. 3 min
Year: 2018

Written for a workshop with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, this piece combines groovy rhythms and changing asymmetrical time signatures. Together, the folksy glissandi, complex syncopations, and cross-layered rhythms form a forward-driving network of musical events that keep the feet tapping and the mind racing.

The Birmingham Groove (2018)

for viola and piano
Duration: c. 7 mins
Year: 2018

Deep Blue Windows is a lyrical piece that sets slow-moving jazzy piano chords against outbursts of yearning, blues-like melody lines in the viola. Moments of calm alternate with sections of melodic movement, rhythmic and modulational motion slowly increases, growing more and more until eventually leading into a furious viola solo with an almost rock-like piano accompaniment. As the solo culminates in a series of sharp and increasingly climbing harmonics on the viola, the piano harmonies disintegrate, splintering into extremes, before the piece halts... and eases back into the contemplative stillness of the opening chords.

Performed by Adele Govier and Fergal Caulfield.

"Don't be distracted by the occasional sound of people talking in the background – that's because it was a hot July night in central Italy and the concert venue had all the windows open. So what you're hearing are authentic Italian café culture sounds from the street outside. I like to think of it as part of the charm of Italian summer concerts." --Chris Corcoran

Chris Corcoran - Deep Blue Windows (2018)

for electric guitar and string quartet
Duration: c. 7.5 mins
Year: 2016-18

Electric Quintet explores the technical and sonic synthesis of an amplified electric guitar and a string quartet. Initially contrasting fiery electric guitar techniques against intricate string lines, the material is developed through a series of variations that range from fugal forms to rocky guitar solos, from an all-harmonics articulation to pure glissandi. Over the course of these variations, the instrumental contrast diminishes until, in the final section, the guitar and strings join together to become the titular electric quintet.

Electric Quintet was composed for the guitarist Heiko Ossig. 

This recording was performed by Heiko Ossig and the Ligeti String Quartet, and was mixed by Myles Eastwood.

Chris Corcoran – Electric Quintet (2018)

Electracoustic work around an improvisation to Kandinsky’s painting 'Swinging'
Duration: 5 mins 
Year: 2018
Link to large-scale image: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kandinsky-swinging-t02344

Commissioned by Dr Tone Roald for the 'Moving Art' conference at the Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, 1 September 2018. 

I have always been fascinated by Kandinsky's painting Swinging, ever since I first saw it as a student at the Tate Modern Gallery in London. The suggestive nature of the title, along with the vibrant use of colour and asymmetrical geometrical patterns, immediately evoked in me a musical sense of rhythmic swing, improvisation, and variation of repeated motifs. I instantly thought of Swinging when Dr Tone Roald 
commissioned me to compose a piece of music for the Moving Art conference, which dealt with viewers pre-reflective (i.e. instinctive) responses to visual art, and especially the sense of rhythm that art can evoke in viewers. 

I began looking for ways to write a composition that could connect to these concepts. I found myself improvising on a keyboard while looking at Kandinsky’s painting, and realised I could capture these instinctive responses to art by recording myself. Then I took a cue from Kandinsky's striking use of colour and illustrated the recorded ‘monochrome’ electric piano improvisation with bright orchestral sounds while I composed around it. Composing music around the improvisation allowed me to take the patterns and shapes that my subconscious had created while improvising and make them explicit by subjecting them to the kind of variation I had always associated with the colours and asymmetrical shapes of the painting. 

Due to its basis in improvisation, the resulting composition is wildly changeable: at times fast and violent, at times slow and sweet. In combining improvised and composed materials, it captures both my post- and pre-reflective responses to Swinging—and hopefully also some of the swing that is so apparent in Kandinsky’s work.

Chris Corcoran – Kandinsky's Swing (2018)

Four studies on my obsession with syncopated rhythms. The piece was written as an in-depth exploration of syncopated groove materials in an orchestral context. The largely sustaining instrumentation of an orchestra makes creating the sharply attacked syncopations required for groove more difficult. Therefore the piece was designed as a series of large-scale 'studies', taking a syncopated rhythmic idea and running it through a series of metrical and musical variations. Taking its inspiration from improvised band music as well as major orchestral works, it is at times, funky, groovy, lively and contemplative.

Thesis portfolio

Symphonic SynchopathoIogy Mov 4 (MIDI Recording) (2017–20)

Symphonic SynchopathoIogy Mov 3 (MIDI Recording) (2017–20)

Symphonic SynchopathoIogy Mov 2 (MIDI Recording) (2017–20)

Symphonic SynchopathoIogy Mov 1 (MIDI Recording) (2017–20)

I am a composer currently based in Copenhagen & London and studying at Cambridge. My music combines elements from jazz and classical music. For more info see my website at http://corcoranmusic.com. For my film and theater music see https://soundcloud.com/corcoranfilmmusic.

CorcoranMusic

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