A tale of the Tower of Babel (an allegory of Dubai's Burj Khalifa) using texts drawn from multiple historic sources. Live recording taken during Sounds New Festival 2008, Canterbury Cathedral.

The Tower - BBC Singers, Onyx Brass, Stephen Disley (organ), Giles Underwood (baritone)

Written as part of a project with ROH2/ Opera Genesis and performed at Kings Place by Mary Carew and members of the London Sinfonietta. The piece is a cabaret style song based on a diatribe (Lament) against inane popular culture by Giles Coren published in the Guardian in November 2009. The piece combines elements of Purcell's "Didos's Lament with recognisably "Cabaret-style" musical motives.

Giles Coren: "The media, perhaps understandably, have turned very monochromatic of late. It has only two notes: mad, screaming pessimism about money on the one hand, and brutish, wailing enthusiasm for the lowest of low culture on the other. As if a lack of perspective at both ends in some way created balance.....
This is not the time to waste a week of your life with Alan Carr's autobiography (or Dawn French's or Paul O'Grady's or Richard Madeley's) and think it counts as reading a book. Because it doesn't. You have borrowed unwisely. You have taken a week off your life that you will not get back at the end, and when you shut whichever compendium of venal drivel you chose, you will still owe thousands on your worthless home and be in no less danger of losing your job. If you had at least read a bit of Tolstoy, you might have expanded your mind a little. If, instead of watching all those reality shows, you had learnt Japanese, you would be in a better position to remain in work. And if, rather than calling radio phone-ins (to say that Len Goodman is a spoilsport), you had learnt the French horn, you would, if nothing else, be able to play your children a bit of Mozart while they sit shivering round the last candle in the house".

Giles Coren's Lament: Mary Carewe/ London Sinfonietta (Chamber) at Kings Place

Commissioned by Lucy Winkett for her last service as Precentor and Canon Chaplain at St. Paul's Cathedral. Recorded live from the organ loft at the premiere 1.8.10.

Evening Canticles: St. Paul's Service (Aurora Nova)

Premiere of Solomon's Demons played by Ann Elise Smoot in Westminster Abbey on 16th July 2013

Solomon's Demons

Live performance of KAHAYLA by Welsh National Opera live in Dubai in Zabeel Park on New Year's Day 2015. The score of the music forms a picture of the Burj Khalifa. The work was composed in 2009. 

KAHAYLA

Live recording of first performance 10.5.15

Agnus Dei; Missa Brevis Christina of Markyate

Refugee

Thou Hast Searched Me And Known Me (extract) Peterborough Cathedral Choir - live first performance

Setting of a poem by Khaled Abdallah (b. Gaza)

Seeds In Flight -  BBC Singers live at BBC Proms Dubai

Setting of a poem by Abboud Al Jabiri (Iraq)

Fading BBC Singers live at BBC Proms Dubai

Gaudent in coelis: Choral Music by Sally Beamish, Judith Bingham & Joanna Marsh

MIssa Brevis 'Collegium Sanctae Catharinae': I. Kyrie

Thou hast searched me and known me

Missa Brevis 'Collegium Sanctae Catharinae': III. Sanctus & Benedictus

Missa Brevis 'Collegium Sanctae Catharinae': II. Gloria

My orchestral work "KAHAYLA" played by the York Guildhall Orchestra conducted by Simon Wright on Saturday 4th February. Recorded live at the concert on an iphone 4s. The piece is inspired by horse-racing and is an allegory of the city of Dubai where I currently live.

KAHAYLA (York Guildhall Orchestra) Live 2nd perf

Recorded live by BBC Radio 3 at the Premiere on 27th April at Kings Place London
GUARDIAN review:
"Maddalena Casulana in 1568 became the first woman composer to be published. She claimed she wanted “to show to the world the foolish error of men who so greatly believe themselves to be the masters of high intellectual gifts that these gifts cannot, it seems to them, be equally common among women”.

Her words and music proved fertile ground for one of today’s leading composers for voice, Joanna Marsh, who wrote the highlight of the evening, a delightful parody piece, Dialogo and Quodlibet. Two six-part choruses, one male, one female, sang separate texts drawn variously from the letters of Antonfrancesco Doni and his Dialogo della Musica and from Casulana’s forceful declaration on women’s intellectual gifts. The result was a delicious standoff, with the men pompously chuntering on about the shortcomings of compositional technique, oblivious to the women running vocal rings around them"

Dialogo And Quodlibet LIVE

"Straßenversion" by Joanna Marsh was written for the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet and premiered at the Madinat Theatre, Dubai on Wednesday 15th January 2013. The concert was the second in The Score Classical 2013 series.  The group were interested in having a piece that strongly related to the region. There is a preoccupation with fast cars in the UAE; drivers seem to enjoy the long stretches of road, losing themselves in the glorious feeling of speed. The piece is called Straßenversion after the Porsche GT1 road car. 

Straßenversion: Raschèr Saxophone Quartet

Joanna Marsh is a British composer who has been living in Dubai since 2007. Her experience of the Middle East has informed many of her recent compositions including the fanfare "The Falcon and the Lion" commissioned for the Queen's visit to Abu Dhabi, 
(Nov 2010 ) and her recent work for solo piano "The Hidden Desert", (Jan 2011) a piece reflecting on the changing landscape of Dubai through fifteen years of aerial photographs.

The inspiration for Joanna's compositions often comes from seeing contemporary subjects in a historical perspective. For example, "The Tower" (2008) for the BBC singers, (John Armitage Trust) was a reflection on the Burj Khalifa, Dubai's famously tall tower, and its curious parallels with the mythical Tower of Babel. The concert was broadcast on BBC radio 3 as part of the Sounds New contemporary music festival.

In 2009 Joanna had premieres in Lisbon with Onyx Brass: "Toccata", for the Lisbon "Bach Festival", at Kings' Place, London with "The Lament of Giles Coren" for soprano and quintet, at the Temple Church with "Columba", an organ symphony and at Winchester Cathedral with her set of organ pieces, "Four Musical Clocks". Also in 2009, Joanna was one of the composers on the Opera Genesis "Composing for Voice" Scheme at the Royal Opera House, which culminated in a performance with members of the London Sinfonietta.

In addition to her concert music, Joanna composed the music for the short film "The Morse Collectors" which has won prizes at seven international film festivals including the Chicago Children's Film Festival. Her songs for children's choirs based on the poetry of Brian Patten, have been performed at festivals and choral competitions internationally and across the UK including BBC Choir of the Year. In 2005 she wrote a musical installation for the Pier 6 Bridge at Gatwick Airport.

Joanna (b. 1970) studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and was an organ scholar at Sidney Sussex College Cambridge.

Joanna Marsh

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