Do you think that Theme & Variations Form has a limit?

UK Premiere recording, composed for the International Viola Congress, Porto 2014, and performed at Birmingham Conservatoire on 15th December, 2014.

Viola I: Elsabe Raath
Viola II: Rebecca Stubbs
Viola III: Matt Johnstone
Viola IV: Eileen Smith
Viola V: Alistair Rutherford​

In this piece I wanted to explore the limitations of a once popular form – Theme & Variations. I purposefully took a tune which I find extremely dull, and tried to turn it on its head.
The first variation takes fragments of the melody (heard in Vla. I), and is harmonically based around the home key Ab. The second variation treats the melody in a Waltz style, though the harmonies become less traditional throughout the Waltz and the second time through is interjected with violent fragments of the countermelody by Vla. II. Variation 3 uses the melody both for harmonic and melodic material, creating intense clusters. Variation 4 uses the accompaniment as the melody, putting it through various meters changing at a fast pace. The last Variation doesn’t alter the melody at all but completely changes the atmosphere through ethereal harmonies.
This piece is inspired by Alkan’s Le festin d'Ésope variations, where he takes a small, simple melody and slowly rips it to shreds.

www.leonhaxby.com

Variations on a Theme by Edward Elgar (for Viola Quintet)

Thanks to the mighty Naomi Sullivan and Dan Milverton for recording this, and to Paddy Lester-Rouke for recording.

Music for Saxophone Quartet

(2015) - for Piano and 8 sustaining instruments

performed by Arjun Jethwa (flute), James Fletcher (oboe), Tamara Haynes (clarinet), Emily Wright (alto sax), Tom Earl (tenor sax), Dani Blanco Albert (trumpet), Daniel Galbreath (viola), Paul Zabba (accordion), Sam James (piano)

conducted by Sandra Horne

REVERB MUSIC

On 25th May Ireland will vote on amending its restrictive abortion laws. I was asked by Room for Rebellion and C.A.N.V.A.S. to create a piece for a compilation in aid of pro-choice charities to be released prior to the referendum. For logistical reasons this compilation won’t be released until later in the year, so I’ve decided to share the piece now, a week away from the referendum.

If you’re an Irish citizen or resident, please donate to Together for Yes:
https://www.togetherforyes.ie/donate/
If you’re not an Irish citizen or resident, please donate to Abortion Support Network or Alliance for Choice: https://www.asn.org.uk  http://www.alliance4choice.com/donate-2/

ABOUT THE PIECE:

“I am an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other on its edge.” 

Like most people of my generation, I studied the work of Peig Sayers (1873-1958) at school and the opening lines of her 1936 autobiography "Peig" are burned into my consciousness. "Peg 2018" takes those opening lines as a starting point, but departs immediately from the original, imagining the reflections of an entirely different, fictional Peg, an Irishwoman born in the 1950s. 

NOTE: The piece in no way represents the views of Peig Sayers or her descendants.
CONTENT ADVISORY: Material may be distressing for some listeners.

Image: Gustave Courbet's Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl

Peg 2018

'Unfolding Chamber Piece' is an abstract work characterised by different repetitive sections. Throughout the work, these either move from one to the other or are juxtaposed.

Performed by Kluster 5
Recorded by Oscar Bouwmans

Unfolding Chamber Piece (2018)

One of my earliest commissions, scored for string orchestra (recording was done via a zoom device within the audience)

Allegro For Strings (live Recording)

Rinse FM Podcasts

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Youngsta & Loefah with Orson - 18th October 2018

a different kind // graphic score for orchestra
performers: the Jesus College Music Society Orchestra
conductor: me (lol) 

I wrote (made?) this piece over a year ago and so it was such a joy for it to finally have an outing!! 

programme note:
I chose to make this orchestral score by hand: I used paints, brushes, scissors, and glue -- the handmade aesthetic is immediate, creative, and vulnerable. 

I started making 'a different kind' because of a specific idea for an orchestral shape -- the piece then mutates through other slowly shifting, graphically notated ideas, experimenting with timbre and texture and throwing conventionally notated melodic cells into stark relief. these melodic cells are sweet and melancholic and come from some of my favourite songs, and I like the jarring joining of these simple melodies with clouds of instrumental sound.

during its creation, this piece became a visceral, doing-based meditation on how one can approach making feminist orchestral music -- how to think about challenging (fundamentally patriarchal) value judgements which have defined the Western canon, which in many ways are at their most reified (and deified) in orchestral music.

a different kind

An excerpt from the opening section from New Eyes, inspired by black holes and gravitational physics. This section depicts the violent journey into a black hole and reveals an imagined world beyond the event horizon.
Recorded in workshop by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Seal

New Eyes (Excerpt)

Cambridge, 7 June 2019. Ligeti Quartet.

Score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qKE9kBPAXo

https://bennobuto.com/playtime

playtime

RGNM015

Aquatone:The Remixes 

out now on band camp

1.  Aquatone 2(Crypticz Remix)
2. Aquatone 4(Paracusia's They've Awoke Remix)
3. Aquatone 7(Jaskin & Uneven Remix)
4. Aquatone 10(Silent Dust Remix)
5. Aquatone 11(Dexta Remix)

Aquatone:The Remixes

RGNM015.Aquatone:The Remixes (OUT NOW ON BANDCAMP)

Leon Haxby (b. 1993) is a Composer, Producer, DJ and teacher based in Cambridge. He has always been fascinated with the effect of quotation and re-contextualisation in music, and is now pursuing this field of study both in composition and through his academic research on 'Music’s Uncanny Valley'.

Leon began composition lessons with Darren Bloom at Forest School in London and was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, followed by a place at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam where he completed his Masters in Composition in 2019. His compositions have been featured at world-famous festivals including the String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam and TROMP Percussion Festival, and at venues such as Kings Place and Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, as well as others throughout Europe, North America and South Africa.

In 2020 Leon launched ‘Delian Sound’. Under this alias he DJ's and produces Garage and Jungle featuring samples from Delia Derbyshire and her contemporaries at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Variations on a Theme by Edward Elgar (for Viola Quintet)

Leon Haxby - Composer

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