Name: Acoustical Anatomy by davidjohnroche
Duration: 10 min 3 s
Description: Performed by the Orion Orchestra at Cadogan Hall, February 2018. Commissioned by Dyson and the Orion Orchestra.

Workshopped and recorded with BBC National Orchestra of Wales as part of Composition Wales 2020/2021.

Ternion is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's painting 'Adoration of the Magi'. 
Unlike other paintings of the time, Mary, Jesus' mother is at the focal point of the painting. 
The music is written from the viewers perspective, their gaze wandering around the painting, before coming to rest on Mary again, at the end.

Ternion

Fuse, Charge, Break was originally composed with the idea of emulating the sound of a single firework, gradually morphing into a bombastic firework show. The final version of the piece decided to go its own way, but what remains is nevertheless an explosive show piece for orchestra. The music explores a variety of musical metaphors and textures for a firework, such as a lit fuse, a fast ascent into the sky, a slow whistling descent, and the inevitable "break" of the casing.

Recorded during the Toledo Symphony Reading Session at Bowling Green State University on 3/15/22

Fuse, Charge, Break

Slowly evolving piano improvisation that uses a couple of contrasting themes - recorded in one take on Wednesday 29th June 2022

Dinging Rainfalls

I have extraordinarily little skill or knowledge with DAWs and electronic music work. But one of my teachers, Dr. Neil Anderson-Himmelspach, has really helped me learn some things. "Meow" is a track I wrote in Ableton Live based on things that Dr. Spach taught me during my time in his Intro to Electro-Acoustic Music class. The synth melody was all improv that I did on keyboard, which was particularly fun as I don't have any experience improvising on keyboard. I got the purring and meow sounds online. I wanted to sample my own cat, O'Malley, pictured here, but it was too difficult to get samples of him making noise. He gets microphone-shy.

I am still not good at this stuff, but I could do this at least. Enjoy the music!

Meow

A ballet in one act based on the tale of the Three Little Pigs. First performed on 1st April 2023 by students of the English National Ballet School.

Three Houses (complete ballet)

Orchestral Concert work for Solo Euphonium - Written especially for James McLeod, "Phoenix Song" portrays the dramatic journey of the Persian legend, the firebird - Phoenix. 

Phoenix Song for solo euphonium and orchestra

Performed by the Orion Orchestra at Cadogan Hall, February 2018. Commissioned by Dyson and the Orion Orchestra.

Acoustical Anatomy

Performance by Vickers Bovey guitar duo, recorded on 4 April 2018 and premiered at St David's Hall's NightMusic that evening.
Composed by Lucy McPhee
Recorded & produced by James Clarke

McPhee writes:
‘April 4, 1968,’ is written to remember the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.
The melodic material is made from a chromatic cypher of April 4th.

I have taken three quotes from his final speech entitled ‘I have been to the mountaintop.’
These three quotes then make up my movement titles. 

1.	Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars…
2.	We want to be free
3.	I’m not fearing any man

Lucy McPhee - April 4, 1968 (Vickers Bovey duo)

Liszt arranged Robert Schumann's song (Op. 25. no. 1, 1840) in 1848. It is catalogued as S.566.

The original poem that Schumann set to music is by Friedrich Rückert. The song opened Schumann's cycle _Myrthen_ Op. 25, which was a wedding present to Clara Wieck.

Schumann-Liszt Widmung

www.davidjohnroche.com

David John Roche’s music is direct, determined, and loud. Strongly influenced by heavy metal, lush orchestral music, and his working-class Welsh background, he has been marked out as a “clear-minded and class-conscious artist” (Culture Matters) and “one of the most energetic, driven, and successful of Wales’s millennial generation of composers” (Tŷ Cerdd). David’s work has been described as “exquisite” (Adam Walton, BBC Introducing Wales), praised for its “ingenious scoring” (The Arts Desk), and complimented for its “passages of intense expressive power” (Thomas Adès). His compositions have been broadcast, televised, and written about internationally to millions of people.

A string of international performances and commissions form the backbone of David’s work: BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Florence Philharmonic, Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Center, Psappha Ensemble, and the Solem Quartet, among others.  David has been nominated for an award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been the recipient of an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice Grant and a Lithuanian Arts Council grant. He has just completed an electric guitar concerto for Sean Shibe, Sinfonia Cymru, and Britten Sinfonia, and he is currently finishing his first symphony-length work for orchestra, funded by Aberystwyth University, Tŷ Cerdd, and the Arts Council of Wales.

Acoustical Anatomy

davidjohnroche

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