Live performance

Ekmeles, directed by Jeffrey Gavett
Moore Musical Arts Center, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
22 November 2021

Madrigal book in 31-TET (2012-16) after Nicola Vicentino
Texts adapted from Jacques Arcadelt's Primo Libro de' Madrigali (1539)

Primo Libro

for guitar, bass clarinet and any two bowed string instruments, with weeds (2021)

commissioned and performed by Prague Quiet Music Collective:

Ian Mikyska (guitar and weeds), Irvin Venyš (bass clarinet and weeds), Milan Kárník Jakeš (violin and weeds), Luan Gonçalves (double bass and weeds)

First performed at Prague Quiet Music Festival, Museum of Music, Prague, 18 December 2021

Live recording of premiere

*****

Weeds: unwanted plants, plants in the wrong place:

unwanted, small, straggling, spindly, rough, common, not useful, without elegant form, texture or colour, lacking in definition, unclear, lacking in strength;

in the wrong place, unboundaried, messy, in the cracks, spilling-out, unplanned, unfixed, in-between, uncultivated;

weedweaver is a music of weeds. In the dishonourable ontology of the weed it asserts beauty: fragile, entangled, various, lively.

weedweaver

Sections (full duration 56mins) from Plain Air for mezzo-soprano, piano and tape (2021)

commissioned by Lucy Goddard and Siwan Rhys with funding from RVW Trust

text: Nan Shepherd, 'The Living Mountain', used by kind permission of Canongate Books Ltd through PLSClear

Lucy Goddard, mezzo
Siwan Rhys, piano

Live premiere performance

MUSICON, Durham

22nd June 2022

Plain Air - Sampler

for orchestra (2019)

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov (orchestra)

extract of world premiere, Tectonics Glasgow, City Halls, Glasgow, 1 May 2022

recorded by BBC Radio 3; used with permission

www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

********

Weligwic (Anglo-Saxon, ‘place of willows’) is a sibling of my string quartet Leafleoht (‘Leaf-light’, 2018), and is similarly concerned with images of light and foliage, and our indwelling in the natural world (a theme woven through the mythology of willows since ancient times). The two pieces share many materials and follow a similar three-section structure, but whereas Leafleoht is concerned with daylight and brightness, Weligwic takes place in a half-light and is overcast and subdued in atmosphere. The first section consists of a series of extremely soft, fleeting aural glimpses; in the long central section, the Grove, the continuous, variegated string texture (a matrix through which each player wanders independently) acts as a field of sounds underlying other, intermittent layers; the third section sees a repeated brightening of the atmosphere, as on a cloudy day when the sun nearly breaks through.

Weligwic (extract)

for piano and ensemble (2007)
Rolf Hind (piano), CoMA Summer School Ensemble

New Day

Alexandra Raikhlina, Gordon Bragg, violins
Jan Bradley, percussion

live performance at Brundibár Arts Festival, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2nd February 2016

written 2003-4

I - Saenredam (solo oboe d'amore and guitar, 2 alto flutes, 2 clarinets in A, organ and vibraphone)
II - Low Country (string quartet)
III - Duinland (solo piano with vibraphone)

Live recording of premiere, 6 February 2007, St Anne and St Agnes, London

Kürbis Ensemble

Juliette Bausor, Louisa Dennehy, alto flute
Christopher Redgate, oboe d'amore
Timothy Orpen, Peter Sparks, clarinet

Darragh Morgan, Sophie Appleton, violin
Bridget Carey, viola
Louisa Tuck, cello

Karen Hutt, vibraphone
Alan Thomas, guitar
Andrew Griffiths, chamber organ

James Weeks piano/conductor

Schilderkonst

(2005)

Kürbis Ensemble (Sophie Appleton, violin, Louisa Tuck, cello, James Weeks, piano), London 2009?

Honey Celebration celebrates honey. It also pays homage to (and borrows its title from) Tapies’ painting Celebracio de la mel, and the exquisite lyric melos of Schubert (from whom its material derives). Its three sections run continuously and become progressively more intimate. It was written for the Bloomsbury Piano Trio and first performed by them in the church of St Magnus the Martyr, London, in November 2005.

Honey Celebration

Libro di fiammelle e ombre (2017)
for six solo voices

incorporating madrigals by Jacques Arcadelt

EXAUDI / James Weeks

Libro di fiammelle e ombre

Quatuor Bozzini
Musicon, Durham, UK
20 November 2018 (world premiere)

recording and mixing: Mike Worboys

Leafleoht (the title means 'leaf-light' in Anglo-Saxon) arose from a memory-image of wind in the leaves of a hedge near the sea, the intricate and supple motions of the leaves, and bright (morning) sunlight refracting through the plant and reflecting off the leaf surfaces. This image is the focus of the first part of the piece; the second part is more serene and still (perhaps airier, or more concerned with the light alone) and the last is an extremely soft trembling, as of grass. The musical materials are elemental: different lengths and types of bowstroke creating different rhythmic lines and textures; Just Intonation harmony founded on the open strings of the instruments; whistling and murmured speech alongside the playing. As with other recent pieces I am interested in our relationship to what we call the natural world, specifically our embeddedness or indwelling within it. Each part is a single image; as the critic Adrian Searle wrote about an exhibition of Bridget Riley (quoted in the spoken text of the third part), the music attempts 'just to be here, in this light'.

Leafleoht

Narrow Path

Complainte

New London Chamber Choir
London Sinfonietta
James Weeks, conductor

The Freedom of the Earth

Inscription

String Quartet (to Alberto Caeiro)

for violin and piano, performed by em.em.em (Tokyo)

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten

performed by Quatuor Bozzini at Milton Court, London, March 2019

Leafleoht (2nd performance)

for piano trio (2011)
performed by Kürbis 
University of Durham, 4th February 2013

November '11

composed 2017
performed by Royal Northern Sinfonia

James Weeks Composer

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