A sadly comical concert piece for clarinet (=bass clarinet) and piano, reflecting the faded memories of a dancer, possibly with fading mind.

Echoes From A Ballet

Three slightly unconventional symphonic marches for brass band. The tunes never quite go to where you imagine they might; but that's all part of the fun...

Three Yorkshire Marches - No.1. An Idle March

A recent orchestration of Fripperies and Frazzles. The original version for oboe and piano was the first prize winner of the 4th International Composition Contest, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos

Fripperies and Frazzles - for oboe and small orchestra

Dedicated to "Dr S" (the incredible Adam Swayne), this is for Solo Piano and Windband, and was performed by Jack Redman, piano, and the Lancing College Concert Band, conducted by Steve Dummer in 2014.
The score calls for speech, finger clicks, bouncing balls and seven non-bouncing objects. These have been appropriately/approximately substituted in this digital mock-up.

Bounce - No Bounce

Having written several very busy pieces in succession, featuring solo woodwind instruments, the clarinettist Prudence Whittaker suggested I tried to write something less frenetic. I probably didn't manage that in the second of these two pieces. But, when I was asked to write something for Alfriston, one visit suggested to me some music in which nothing happens - or at least not very much...

. . . with Views of a Higher Place . . .  was first performed at the Alfirston Summer Festival by Alun Darbyshire, oboe, and the Alfirston Festival Orchestra (leader Daniel Bhattacharya) on 5 August 2012.

This music, for solo oboe and string orchestra, is dedicated: for Julie, my wife of 25 years - being mostly written shortly after our silver wedding anniversary in 2011.

. . . WITH VIEWS OF A HIGHER PLACE - I

I was fortunate to meet Roger Cowen, artist, although in not-so-fortunate circumstances. We found ourselves in facing hospital beds, in varying degrees of semi-awareness, shortly before Christmas 2019. We shared, I think, a fascination for some of our fellow inmates and our keepers. I noticed Roger sketching in his notebook; he noticed my scratching away in my Moleskine manuscript book. Neither would really have known what the other was up to, although I suspect we each had an inkling that it was exercising the other's imagination.
The twinkle in Roger's eye held a certain earnestness, a clear focus, although perhaps meandering somewhat. This prompted me to ask 'Mr Google' about Roger Cowen, as the 21st Century implicitly encourages. I entered his magical website. I was and have remained
fascinated by Roger's masks, and began to imagine several of them comprising a parade, hence this serendipitous music.
Unusually for me, much of my original sketched material survived intact when the The Hidden Masks of Roger Cowen was made. Roger and I agreed the title. I didn't reveal which of his masks feature; but I suspect he knows, even if I'm not entirely sure.
The music is, in essence, a sequence of variations. Like a parade - and like Roger's masks - distortions of similar perception reappear. Perhaps the interpolatory refrains are the theme, perhaps they are merely places where the eye momentarily stops wandering and takes in the whole, rather than the moment.
I shall be ever grateful to Roger Cowen for bringing this music to me.
Roger's mask paintings may be seen at www.rogercowen.co.uk – please pay a visit.

The Hidden Masks Of Roger Cowen (Parade with Refrains)

This collection of piano miniatures comprises eight Forethoughts and Afterthoughts, and seven Enigmas, which may be listened to in quite a lot of different permutation.
For a complete performance, a minimum of four Enigmas and five Forethoughts and Afterthoughts should be played. One may, of course, play all of the pieces.
One of the Forethoughts and Afterthoughts (tracks FA1-8) should begin the performance, and a different one should follow each Small Enigma (tracks SE1-7). Within these rules, it’s up to you which order to play the pieces in.
I have recorded one complete version, to save you the time and effort. It’s not for me to say whether this is the one I most like (I haven’t tried many).

Enforced covid isolation in recent months turned my thoughts increasingly towards my usual musical refuge – perception of time – specifically how much time away from social contact one could survive (in relative sanity). I have been long fascinated by the idea of timelessness.
A single performance of Some of Miss Vidler’s Forethoughts and Afterthoughts with Several Small Enigmas will last between seven and thirteen minutes. But it would take about eight thousand, eight hundred years (give or take), to play through all 3,530,314,368,000 permutations of the fifteen pieces.
Polly Vidler is a character in the chamber opera The Knucker that I wrote with Stephen Plaice. She is an initially innocent, but ultimately strategizing, young girl, perhaps destined to become the latest in a long succession of the Knucker-monster's deathly victims. The music of Some of Miss Vidler's Forethoughts and Afterthoughts is derived from paraphrases of Polly's Aria, during which in the opera she flirtatiously encourages the Knucker towards his eventual demise.
The Small Enigmas are merely inconsequential doodles.

Some Of Miss Vidler's Forethoughts And Afterthoughts With Several Small Enigmas (1 Complete Version)

Ian Morgan-Williams is a composer, conductor and music educator.
His music focuses on physical gesture, the illusion of synchronicity, folk idioms and non-octave-repeating scales. He would say his music dances, and invites listeners to focus not on how complex unfamiliar music is, but rather on how simple it isn't.
Ian is also an enthusiastic baker and will soon be launching Ian's Biscuits, Bread & Cakes log on the IBBC pages at ian.morgan-williams.com

Ian M-W

Popular tracks