Song from the film 'The Singing Nun' (1959)
Music: Sœur Sourire 
English lyrics: Randy Sparks
Sung by Debbie Reynolds

I like to make songs into rounds. This one has 3 parts; One per nun. This music might make you insane.

Dominique

Folding Stars and other love songs can be seen as a short love song from the point of view of one person (the flute line), from the other (the falling, folding harp part), or even both. The piece tries to capture that immediate moment of infatuation when you first cross eyes with a new love, be it platonic or erotic, and the amount of thoughts that rush through ones head in that singular, suspended moment. It can equally represent a lifetime of a relationship and a long standing love, with its twists and turns and unpredictability. The other love songs are all embedded within this 3 minute exploration, which can be seen as one whole piece, or a combination of smaller pieces/moments sewn together.

 Folding Stars and other love songs was premiered by Claire Wickes (flute) and Tomos Xerri (harp), on 16/3/2017 at 1901 Arts Club, London, as part of the Hattori Foundation’s Rush Hour concert series. The piece is dedicated, with much love, to Tomos and his partner, Aaron, on the occasion of their upcoming wedding. I wish them a long and happy marriage and hope these little sort-of-love songs have captured the love you share.

Live @ 1901 Arts Club

Folding Stars and other love songs (rough cut)

You can take everything except the bird is a musical landscape full of gesture and melody. The melodies never fully get to sing out, and the gestures never really take flight. The two are constantly in argument with each other.
An equally apt title for this piece would be You can keep everything except the bird depending on how the argument throughout the piece is perceived.

You can take everything except the bird was premiered by members of the Gagliano Ensemble (Galya Bisengalieva and Robert Ames) on 29/3/14 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

Recording from pre-concert rehearsal St. Peter's Church, Notting Hill, London.

Live

You Can Take Everything Except The Bird

Imagined Balcony Scene #2 is part of a series of pieces where I reimagine classic tropes from theatre and film. The first ‘Imagined Balcony Scene’, as one may of guessed, is the classic Romeo and Juliet scene, and the second, my ‘re-imagining’, makes Juliet a little more angry than in the original. She is annoyed her new love isn’t there. She shouts his name into the empty courtyard. She vents all her frustrations of teenage life as her new world collapses. She sings her song into the air. She was ready to give up everything, her name, her family, but would she now.
The piece also takes inspirations from a friend of mine’s recent trip to Verona, where they went to the ‘real’ balcony only to find it closed. The frustration of not being able to access the ‘real’ version of the famous ‘imagined’ balcony resulted in them re-enacting the original scene in every other space they could find. Hilarity ensued as they over dramatised the situation of both the young lovers, and themselves. This second story may also be a slight re- imagining of an almost true story.
Imagined Balcony Scene #2 was premiered by Conrad Marshall, at St. Michael’s, Ancoats, Manchester, on 4/5/17 and was commissioned as part of Psappha’s on-going ‘Writing For...’ project. Many thanks to the ensemble and everyone involved in their guidance and commitment to this project.

Live Recordings

Imagined Balcony Scene #2

Penrose is a brief study for string trio that explores obsession and compulsion through short processes mixed with my own, romantic intuition. 

 The piece is divided into three short sections played without pause, each being lead by one of the three performers. The first, ‘Oh Darling! Don’t get sentimental…’ is focuses on the violin. It contains a rising phrase that grows increasingly tense as more notes are added, but always ends with a sweet descending, emotional set of falling thirds. This builds until the whole ensemble is infected by the tension and the objects they have obsessed over in the course of the section begin to distort.  

 The second, ‘Pure Crow II – in memoriam’ is a re-writing of a short string quartet written after a close friend died. The violin and viola swirl and shimmer through harmonic rotations and ever-fluctuating rhythms, whilst the cello sings mournful objects around them. 
 
The final section, ‘Hôtel du Lac, Tunis’ uses the brutalist structure of the eponymous structure to create a musical form full of sinking consonance, as the viola sings an ever-shortening song, over the drones played by the remaining players.

 Penrose was commissioned by my dear friends Freya, William and Josephine for the 17th edition of their concert series Listenpony. It was premiered at The Crypt on the Green, London, by Apartment House on 28th January 2018

Liam Mattison (London, January 2018)

Penrose

Live recording of the first performance.

I. A cat went to the shops ellipses
II. Hollywood Adaptation - Transition
III. Hull Fair - Trance
IV. 9.25 am (Saturday)
V. 8.50 am (Friday) - Repentance
VI. Mother's Perfume 

ADULTHOOD is a piece about reflection and nostalgia; it draws its themes and structures from the re-contextualisation of childhood fantasies and memories through the eyes of my adult self – innocent games become drinking games, early mornings move from waking up full of energy to waking up tired and, sometimes, hungover, huge fairground rides become small and constricting. The piece was written at a time of my life when I had far too many grown-up things to think about – moving house, working nine to five, opening up emotionally to others – and so it felt natural to escape these pressures by writing a piece harking back to a simpler time, but perhaps not longing for those times to return.

The first performance of ADULTHOOD was programmed alongside a work by my old conducting teacher, Gregory Rose, in a festival that contained music that he taught me, alongside works that were completely new to me. The piece draws on my half remembrances, or complete reimagining of those conducting lessons and exams, whilst also pushing my own musical language in a new direction.

ADULTHOOD is the 2018 Presteigne Festival/Royal Philharmonic Society Alan Horne Memorial commission. It was premiered by George Barton (percussion) and Siwan Rhys (Piano) as part of the 2019 Presteigne Festival, at St. Andrew’s Church, Presteigne on 26/08/2019.

Live @ Presteigne 2019

ADULTHOOD - World Premiere (Live @ Presteigne Festival 2019)

A second mix of my piece 'In the absence of heather'

In the absence of heather rotates some invented and some found musical objects through an ever changing harmonic cloud to reveal the intimacies and intricacies held within each. Half-remembered melodies and harmonies coalesce - folding and collapsing into each other, pining to remember their own intent and purpose whilst sympathising with the forgotten wishes and paths of others.

During the composing of the piece, I was thinking a lot about those emotionally unbearable harmonic suspensions in early music, and how it feels to experience that yearning for resolutions in all aspects of life. At the time of writing this note, resolution and the outside world seem tangibly close but still so far away, so the longing for a resolve continues.

In the absence of heather was commissioned by Ret Frem Ensemble during the COVID-19 and received an online premiere on 20th July 2020, filmed in isolation.

In the absence of heather

Composer based in London and occasionally Leeds. 

Royal Academy of Music Graduate.
Britten Pears Artist 2015/16
London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Scheme 2016/17 and 17/18 (5' commission)
RPS Composition Prize 2018

LiamMattison

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