Strange Beast for one or more double basses.  

Version for three basses, recorded by James Banner.  

Strange Beast was written for the Arc Project in the summer of 2020.

Strange Beast

Alto recorder and live electronics.

Studio recording by Carmen Troncoso and Desmond Clarke.

This piece comprises two of the seven movements of RECORDARI.

oiseaux métamorphique (2017)

Transcendental Strains (2017)

for woodwind quartet

studio recording

Transcendental Strains (2017)

Hypoglossa (2017)  

for human voice with optional electronics (version for solo voice)  

Recorded by @leo-birtwhistle

Hypoglossa (2017) [version for solo voice]

Performed by CLADZ, June 2017, York, UK

I. Nuages (0:00)

II. Roche; osieau (2:12)

III. Vocalistes (4:07)

IV. Mégalithe   (5:40)

Each of the four movements of Quatre Tableaux Vivants is a portrait of a miniature, imagined scene - some fairly literal, some more metaphorical.

The work makes continual reference to the music of Olivier Messiaen, filtered through a microtonal lens. Four of the clarinets are detuned by a quarter-tone, and the interplay between the different tunings this produces are explored in various ways across the piece.

The work is dedicated to CLADZ, Sapphire Littler and Will Ozard, who first asked me to write for the group back in 2015.

Quatre Tableaux Vivants (2017)

Transcendental Strains III(a) for 1-4 instruments and live electronics.

Version for two oboes recorded by the composer 09/01/2018

Transcendental Strains III (2017)

Recorded Feb 2018   

Clarinets: 
Sapphire Clare Littler
@will-ozard

Transcendental Strains III (2017) [Extract] (version for 2 clarinets)

oboe and live electronics  
performed by the composer

SATURATE (2018)

For three improvising soloists and improvising ensemble with video score. Premiered 5th January 2019 by the Northern Contemporary Collective, Leeds, UK.

Gruppenspiel (2018) [Extract: Cadenza]

Some extracts from music made for Bethan Vincent's upcoming podcast, The Brave.

bethanvincent.com

Music for "The Brave"

Recorded live at Besbrodes Piano showroom, Leeds, performed by Jakob Fichert, for whom the piece was written.

Liszt Fields II: World Without End (2018) [Live]

Oboes: Mikey Sluman and Desmond Clarke 
LIAM: Leeds Improvised Art & Music 
11th of August 2019

This isn't a perfect recording, but I think it captures the energy of the performance, which was fairly intense!

Transcendental Strains III (2017) [Live Recording Aug 2019]

MEADOWLAND for bass oboe, hecklephone and bassoon.
 
Written for and premiered by the Roseau Trio.
 
Recorded at the Leeds International Concert Series, October 2019.

MEADOWLAND (2019)

Recorded live at A M O K #4 16th July 2019

Improvisation with Prepared Cor Anglais (Amongst Nature)

A recording I made in a few spare hours on Monday 4th November 2019. It's by no means perfect, but I don't believe there are any other recordings of this piece around, so someone may find it useful.
  
*Not having a string quartet to hand the string parts are realised as generated tones.

Alvin Lucier - Serenade for Oboe and Strings* (1995)

In the summer of 2019 I was asked by @gaia-blandina to be part of her installation "Baby Come Home". I was to go up a tiny staircase into a church tower, and make as much sound as I could for as long as I could, alone in a small room. It was a genuinely transformative experience - focussing on loudness and saturation over any conventional "musical" content slowly led me to types of playing which I'd never accessed before, and sounds I didn't know my instrument was capable of creating.

I recorded parts of the performance for replaying the next day, when I wasn't available to do it live. In this upload, I've layered some of these recordings into a sound-mass, which I think captures something of the spirit of the original performance.

Baby Come Home (Sound-Bath Supercut)

This summer I bought a bansuri. I really like it.

Bansuri Fragment

Version for 4 Bansuri    
Recorded by the composer December 2019
   
Video score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFP__Gv4Zms

Transcendental Strains IV

Composer, oboist and visual artist based in York, UK.

Contemporary classical and electronic music.

https://www.instagram.com/des_r_clarke/

Desmond Clarke

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