Winner of the David Willcocks CSA choral composition prize 2021
Performed by students of Chetham's School of Music in the Stoller Hall, Manchester, 2021 and conducted by the composer

Those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
– Isaiah 40:31

Those Who Wait For The Lord

miniature for violin and piano

performed by members of the phaedra ensemble at the churchill college chapel, cambridge

swainson’s hawk is a long-distance migratory bird, travelling from north american prairies to argentina and brazil during the winter. the imagined experience of its seven-thousand-mile flight – long, static periods without wingbeats while rising on thermal currents, interspersed with the turbulence and peril of stormy weather – is explored in this piece: the two instrumentalists contrast moments of urgency and danger with sections of sparse, sustained sound. though the piece does not follow the journey of the hawk in a narrative sense, the familiar motifs of the final passage do perhaps suggest a successful, if weary, conclusion to the long migration.

with thanks to ewan campbell for his comments, and to clare gilmour for the recording

swainson's hawk

Link to the video: https://youtu.be/yohtAA8tBgs 

In loving memory of my great grandmother (1926-2021).
Na pamiatku mojej drahej (pra)starej mamy (1926-2021).

This piece is about family (relations) and home(land) full of joys, nostalgia as well as pains and obstacles.

Based on a recording of me and my great-grandma singing a Slovak folk song "Po nábreží, koník beží".
Big thanks to my father and his passion for capturing every moment of our childhood.

FLIGHTLESS DOVES by Kornélia Nemcová
Performed by Ashley Brand (Clarinet in Bb), Alex Lyon (Bass Clarinet), Rebecca Burden (Cello), Sam Pugh (Double Bass) and Kornélia Nemcová (conducting and violin).
Electronics by Kornélia Nemcová.

Recorded by Ben Leigh-Grosart and TL's AV MUSIC team.
Sound mix by Ben Leigh-Grosart, video edit by Ben Leigh-Grosart and Kornélia Nemcová.

Composed for Trinity Laban's Rude Health Festival 2021.
Performed on 27 October 2021, Peacock Room, KCC, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

Flightless Doves (Rude Health Festival 2021) LIVE - link to the video in description

Kaija Saariaho - Spins and Spells for Solo Cello
Cello: Gabriel Francis-Dehqani
May 2022

Kaija Saariaho - Spins And Spells

everything is better backwards

LIVE RECORDING

EXAUDI
Emma Tring (soprano)
Lucy Goddard (mezzo)
Tom Williams (countertenor)
David de Winter (tenor)
Ben McKee, Simon Whiteley (bass)

James Weeks (conductor)

UK premiere
St Paul's Hall, Huddersfield
hcmf//
19 November 2022

recording engineer: Nicholas Moroz

Marea Flusso Deriva (Tide Flow Drift) is the opening madrigal of Il Libro dei Margini (The Book of Boundaries), a cycle, still in progress, dedicated to the different states of consciousness experienced during sleep: loss of consciousness, perceptions, dreams, the awakening, the quality of time and also the particular vocal behaviours, language and sounds of this particular situation. I wrote and edited the texts myself referring to everyday life, using reminiscences from Georgi Gospodinov and the Italian poet Alessandra Conte as well as transcriptions of personal dreams. 

Marea flusso deriva depicts the moment when we close our eyes and fall asleep. Echoes of the images and voices heard during the day overlap chaotically in our mind. Gradually, the disordered rhythm of these images and sounds gives way to the biological and cyclical rhythm of calm night breathing. Time dilates and we enter the dimension of night time, full of fictitious presences, remnants, mysterious epiphanies, giving rise to the enigmatic theatre of a dream.

Here, a vague threatening presence takes the form of a bull chasing us into an endless underground city where we try to escape. At the same time, a sentence condemns us to death and the city in which we are escaping turns into our own bowels. Once successfully escaped to the surface, we suddenly find ourselves on the shore of a calm sea where we are entranced by the song of a mysterious woman.

Lorenzo Pagliei - Marea flusso deriva (2022)

‘The Solar System does not play well-tempered’ was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Music for the ‘200 Pieces’ celebration of the institution’s bicentenary. It was premiered by Leo Kerr on 30th Nov 2021 in the Angela Burgess Recital Hall. 

The slightly whimsical title comes from a talk given by Dr Nicole Pawellek at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, in which she looked at historical theories of ‘music of the spheres’ (the title of her talk) through the lens of modern astronomy and astrophysics. There was one particular slide that leapt out at me showing how, amazingly, densities in the asteroid belt appear to exactly match the ratios of partials in the harmonic series! This became the starting point for my piece: on one side portraying the dramatic contrasts between the cold depths of space and violent encounters with asteroids, and on the other side, using the harmonics shared between a musical instrument in one’s hand and the asteroid belt as a source of harmonic and structural inspiration!

The Solar System does not play well-tempered (MP3)

written by me sample is greta girwig dont sue me greta thanks

my pathetic summer

take 2

the intentionally undistorted version

cats LOVE THIS Sainsbury's

A sonic arts experiment where I recorded Debussy Arabesque No.1 on public pianos around London. I was drawn to the imperfections of each piano and how the changes in space affected the piece. The pieces were recorded using close and far Zoom recorders.

I’d recommend headphones!

Thanks to Anna Conroy for the performances! (perfectly played if not for some broken sustain pedals and detuned pianos!)

London Public Piano Project

Preces (Tomkins)

Jacob Fitzgerald is a British composer of experimental, classical and electronic music based in London

everything is better backwards

Jacob Fitzgerald, Composer