A short five minute work for brass, organ and percussion written for the opening of the Guildhall School's new Milton Court Concert Hall. This performance was given by Guildhall School brass and organ students, with James Wilshire (organ) conducted by James Gaffigan

Come Forth to Play, for brass, organ and percussion (2013)

Spanning a career of over 25 years, Peter Scartabello has composed over 100 works for film, commercials and the concert stage. Notable works include his Bass Clarinet Concerto commissioned by Kathryn Ladano and premiered at the NUMUS festival in Canada in 2012, music for the documentaries Gulabi Gang (2012) and Russian Lessons (2010), the horror franchise Bunnyman, and the romantic drama For Here or To Go? (2015).

James Garner is a composer whose music has been described as “utterly accomplished in all respects” (Dame Judith Weir) and praised for its “warmth, sincerity and tension” (Bachtrack). His works have been performed in the UK and internationally.

James has a deep affinity for vocal and theatrical music, having written multiple pieces for the stage. In 2017, his first chamber opera, East o’ the Sun, West o’ the Moon, received its North American premiere in Montreal, and in 2020 he collaborated on The Opera Story’s digital series Episodes, which won an RPS Inspiration Award. He has previously been commissioned by English Touring Opera (for whom he wrote his second opera, Dust Child), The Opera Story, and Tête à Tête. His next major work and first full-length opera, Much Ado, is based on Shakespeare’s original play and was previewed for the Association for Opera in Canada. It is commissioned by Opera McGill, who will give its world premiere in 2026/27 at the Monument-National in Montréal.

James’s music has also been performed at festivals and series, including the Kings Place Festival, Borough New Music, Richmond Concert Series, and Song in the City. Much of his recent output has consisted of solo and chamber music, including a new work for the guitarist George Tarlton, and a chamber commission from the Orchestra of Opera North. In 2024, he curated a programme of new and devised music at the historic Old Church Stoke Newington, in collaboration with Owen Spafford, Alex Lyon, Hania Woźniak and Carla Huhtanen. Future projects include a song cycle for the soprano Elisabeth Boudreault, and a new collection of solo piano pieces for Joseph Havlat.

James is in regular demand in the UK as a composer for participatory and outreach projects, and has mentored students in music facilitation and opera-making at institutions including the Royal Academy, Royal College of Music, Guildhall School and Oxford University. He has also worked as a conductor and music assistant for the Barbican Centre, Royal Opera House, Royal Festival Hall and BBC Four. He is a regular guest artist on McGill University’s opera programme.

This Spring, James is composing a film opera short with the Canadian novelist Lisa Moore for Opera on the Avalon’s New Commission Series, and leading participatory projects for Turtle Key Arts in association with the Royal College, Oxford University, and the V&A Museum.

James graduated from the Guildhall School with the Muriel Dawson/Mary Ryan Award for Composition. He is also a recent graduate from the Royal Academy, where he studied with David Sawer and additionally with Hans Abrahamsen, supported by the Munster Trust. Previously, James was co-founder and music director of workshOPERA, who were nominated for a New British Music Theatre Award.

His work has been generously supported by the Arts Council and the Maria Björnson Fund.

Daniel Davis is a Portuguese composer based in London. For more information please visit www.danieldaviscomposer.com

Born in Wales in 1969 and brought up in Warwickshire, Julian Philips studied music at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and is one of Britain’s most versatile composers. His music has been performed across the world at major festivals and venues including the BBC Proms, Tanglewood Music Festival, Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne and Wigmore Hall, by international artists including Gerald Finley, Dawn Upshaw, Sir Thomas Allen, the Vertavo String Quartet and BBC orchestras.
With a particular affinity for music for voice, Philips has been critically acclaimed for song settings of Emily Dickinson, e e cummings, Dylan Thomas and Langston Hughes among others, most recently a new cycle for baritone, cello and harp, Turning Fifty (2019) based on the poetry of Judith Wright. Love Songs for Mary Joyce (2016), commissioned by Wigmore Hall for tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Anna Tilbrook, sets a series of late love poems by John Clare. His choral music is similarly celebrated and is included in the Choirbook for the Queen (Church Music) as well as being commissioned for the BBC Proms (Sorrowfull Songes).
As Glyndebourne Opera’s first ever Composer-in-Residence, Philips completed two chamber operas in 2006-9: Followers, a site-specific promenade opera with a libretto by Simon Christmas, and The Yellow Sofa with a libretto by Edward Kemp, subsequently featured in Glyndebourne’s tour and shortlisted for a British Composer Award. The year-long development of Knight Crew was filmed by BBC Television and the resulting series, Gareth goes to Glyndebourne, aired in June 2010. Philips’ opera How the Whale Became, a collaboration with Edward Kemp, was based on Ted Hughes’s The Dreamfighter and other creation tales, and was written for the Royal Opera House’s Christmas 2013/14 season. His most recent full-length opera, The Tale of Januarie, was staged by the Guildhall School in Spring 2017, boasting perhaps the first libretto in Middle English by Stephen Plaice, and based on Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Tale. A new primary school children’s opera, Henny Penny (2021), offers its participants an immersive experience both in music and modern language learning, with versions in French (Cocotte Chocotte), German (Hennig Pfennig) and Spanish (Pollita Chiquita).
Ballet and opera are natural progressions for Philips, who already has an impressive track-record in composing for the theatre and has written two full-length ballets for choreographer Michael Corder and English National Ballet; a ballet based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses was followed by The Snow Queen in 2007. Symphonic works also form Philips’ oeuvre with All that remains commissioned to commemorate the centenary of the beginning of World War I receiving its world premiere by the National Orchestra of Belgium. Ballades Concertantes, for solo viola and double bass with chamber orchestra, premiered with Virginia Slater, Stacey Watton, and the Orchestra of the Swan in 2017, conducted by David Curtis.
A vital force in education, Philips is the Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where he was made Honorary Fellow in 2007, and conferred a Professorship in 2014. He was responsible for the creation of both a new Masters Programme in Opera-Making & Writing and a Doctoral Composer-in-Residence scheme in association with the Royal Opera House.
Recent projects include a new oboe quintet, Through Silence (2020) for Wigmore Hall, and a set of folk song creative transcriptions, Melodys of Earth and Sky (2021), for violin and clarinet that draw on the two books of fiddle tunes collected by poet John Clare. The work was released on NMC Recordings in March 2022, reaching no 10 in the classical charts. In October 2022, The Country of Larks for tenor, horn and piano – a setting of Robert Louis Stevenson – receives its third performance at the Oxford Lieder Festival.
In August 2022, Julian Philips was featured composer at the Presteigne Festival, with six works featured including Barcarola for solo piano, Divertissement for chamber orchestra (based on his ballet score for Les Liaisons Dangereuses) and Looking West – a large-scale dramatic cantata for voices, actors and ensemble, (libretto by Rebecca Hurst), commissioned to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Other recent works include A Series of Strange Encounters for marimba and wind quintet, premiered by Evelyn Glennie at the Lake District Summer Music Festival in July 2023. Current projects include a series of John Clare settings for the vocal ensemble Exaudi and ongoing collaboration with the New London Chamber Ensemble, celebrating their 25th Anniversary, with a series of chamber works.

I'll follow you back when SC lifts the follower limit (!)
Loving listening to everyone's music on here :-))))))))))

Mainly chamber music  here. For other things maybe email me or try some of the following links:

Come Forth to Play, for brass, organ and percussion (2013)

Julian Philips Composer