Movement 2: 'and, between light and darkness'

Interesting mysterious atmosphere, great work

Grace-Evangeline Mason - Whirl Up, Sea
For solo cello
Performed by Theo Bently Curtin

For more details and score: https://ram.ac.uk/multimedia/whirl-up-sea

About 200 PIECES:

As part of its Bicentenary celebrations, the Royal Academy of Music embarked on an ambitious project, inviting 200 composers to write 200 new works for solo instrument or voice. The recordings and scores for these works, written for every principal study instrument taught at the Academy, are now available, creating a new library of varied contemporary works by many of the world’s leading composers.
ram.ac.uk/200-pieces

Whirl Up, Sea

Mason - Whirl Up, Sea

Commissioned as part of the Do We Need A New Compass collection with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Das Neue Ensemble (Hanover).

Brute

A duo for clarinet and piano, performed by ensemble intercontemporain.

Shard (clarinet and piano duo)

RESTART for orchestra
(commission by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian)
Nuno da Rocha

Gulbenkian Orchestra 
dir. Joana Carneiro

recorded by RTP / Antena 2 (9th October 2015)
(premiered on 8th October 2015 at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian)

audio edition: João Dionísio

program note:

RESTART é uma metáfora sobre a anarquia que percorre a minha cabeça. RESTART representa
a minha liberdade, de fazer, de pensar e de partilhar com os outros. De viver com os outros. É uma pergunta. E talvez não responda a nada. Eu creio que talvez seja uma afirmação política. O pensamento é anarca. Esta partitura é anarca. Embora uma partitura nunca seja anarca. Mas esta é quase anarca. RESTART é um pequeno coral de Bach numa tela do Francis Bacon. RESTART é uma tela do Francis Bacon que ele nunca chegou a pintar. São os músicos da Orquestra Gulbenkian que fazem a RESTART.
É deles. O primeiro acorde é deles e o último é de todos nós. RESTART foi escrita para o reiniciar deste palco nesta temporada. Nesta casa. RESTART é uma agressão à palavra, à linguagem verbal. Esta linguagem inventou a religião. Separou o Homem. A música só-música não.
É anarca como eu.

RESTART for orchestra

FRANCISCO C. GOLDSCHMIDT
...murmuró con furia... (2015, first version)
for flute (+bass), bass clarinet, violin, cello & resounding piano


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ensemble hand werk

Daniel Agi, flute & bass flute
Heather Roche, bass clarinet
Stefanie Van Backlé, violin
Niklas Seidl, cello

https://handwerk.bandcamp.com/track/murmur-con-furia-francisco-c-goldschmidt

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Studio Recording 
Tonstudio of Hochschule für Musik Detmold, Germany
Max Hundelshausen, Tonmeister

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Title translation (english/german/french):

...he murmured furiously...
...murmelte er wütend...
...murmura-t–il furieusement...

The title is based on the novel "Eloy" by Carlos Droguett

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Upcoming performance: 

27.06.2019 / University of Music Freiburg
BESTIARIO / (Second version, rev.2016)

19.07.2018 / Institute of Chile of the Academy of Fine Arts
COLECTIVO AZUL / (Second version, rev.2016) 

11.26.2017 / KRAM-03 2017 / Stuttgart Contemporary Music Festival
KOMMAS ENSEMBLE / (Second version, rev. 2016) 

11.10.2017 / Kunst-Station Sankt Peter Köln
KOMMAS ENSEMBLE / (Second version, rev. 2016) 

01.21.2017 / FRAKZIONEN 2017
Bielefeld Contemporary Music Festival
KOMMAS ENSEMBLE / (Second version, rev. 2016) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH94Yp5j2UE

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...murmuró con furia... (2015 version I) / for flute, bass clarinet, violin & cello

World premiere performance, Wrocław, Poland, April 30, 2016.
Vijay Iyer Trio (with Tyshawn Sorey & Stephan Crump)
Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra  
Nikola Kolodziejczyk, conductor

Score available from Schott Music

Emergence (2016) for Trio and Orchestra

Written for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s new music group, Ensemble 10/10, for their 21st birthday concert on 10th October 2018 under Clark Rundell.

I - 'In Sheep's Clothing'
II - 'and, between light and darkness'
III - 'To Breathe Now'

‘Upon Weightless Wings (2018) for large chamber ensemble is written in three movements, each taking inspiration from separate contemporary artworks. The first, ‘In Sheep’s Clothing’, is a slow, dark movement taking its title inspiration from the pine sculpture of the same name by Martin Puryear (1996). The second movement ‘and, between light and darkness’, is based upon the oil painting ‘Y una entre luz y penumbra’ (2006) by Manuel Huertas Torrejon, in which two birds perch facing each other on a ledge, one in shadow and the other illuminated by daylight. The final movement, ‘To Breathe Now’, is inspired by the installation ‘To Breathe – A Mirror Woman’ (2006) by multidisciplinary artist Kimsooja, in which she transformed a palace into a glorious display of reflected rainbows. Across the three movements the piece explores themes of liberation; transitioning from darkness to light, restrain to freedom. It is a work written to celebrate new beginnings, to have weightless wings.' ©G.E.M.2018
 

©Cover Image: 'Wings' Painting by Grace-Evangeline Mason 2018

More information: www.graceevangelinemason.com

Upon Weightless Wings (2018) [In 3 movements]

Extracts from the live recording of the world premiere of 'I saw eternity' by Barnaby Martin performed in St James's, Sussex Gardens, on 2 February 2019.

Andrew Griffiths | Conductor
Londinium chamber choir

Preview/purchase score: www.barnabymartin.com/i-saw-eternity

I saw eternity

This piece was written for the Ligeti Quartet for their project at the Centre for New Music at Sheffield, supported by Arts Council England.


workshop recording

Samoyeds

A lively library track featuring driving piano patterns, lush strings, bouncing flutes, and a soaring solo trumpet.

Voyage

Pastoral Dream is a piece for harp, viola and cello by the British composer and ONMC founder Matthew Olyver. This is a live performance by ONMC musicians Irantzu Agirre-Arrizubieta (harp), Varinia Oyola Rebaza (viola) and Sarah Gait (cello) from our concert 'Towards Bach', which took place on the 27th of September 2019 at St. James's Paddington.

Pastoral Dream - for Harp Trio

www.graceevangelinemason.com

Named as the 'Face to Watch' for classical music in The Times 2020 Calendar of the Arts, Grace-Evangeline Mason is a composer based in the UK. She has been described as ‘a supreme painter in sound’ [Seen and Heard International] and has a ‘keen ear for musical texture - from dreamy hazes of electronic sound to sumptuous choral writing’ [BBC]. Mason creates ethereal sound-worlds often inspired by art, poetry and literature to take a listener on a narrative journey. 

She has worked with ensembles such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the Aurora Orchestra, in venues across the UK and internationally,  including European countries, USA, Canada, Japan and South Africa. Her music has been performed at festivals such as the Cheltenham Music Festival, Southbank SoundState Festival, LFCCM, and the 2017 BBC Proms, amongst others. Her orchestral work ‘The Imagined Forest’, ‘drawn with pen-and-ink precision and filled with vivid orchestral colour’ [The Times], was co-commissioned to mark the 150th anniversary of the Royal Albert Hall premiered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at the 2021 BBC Proms. 

Mason is the recipient of awards including BBC Young Composer of the Year (2013), the RLPO’s Christopher Brooks Prize (2017), and the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize (2018). She studied at the RNCM and the University of Oxford and is currently pursuing her doctorate at the Royal Academy of Music, London. 

Grace-Evangeline Mason's music is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Upon Weightless Wings (2018) [In 3 movements]

GRACE-EVANGELINE MASON

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