My piece 'Qinah' for SSATB (10 voices). Written for the NCEM Composers Award 2014, performed by the Ebor Singers at the final in May 2014. The text is from the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Qinah

'Reflex', composed January-March 2014 for large mixed ensemble. An adventure in loud sounds, fast pacing and brass textures. (MIDI export)

Reflex

'Geography', composed January 2014 for the Royal College of Music Composers' Orchestral Workshop. Its title refers to the plotting of entries and grouping of instruments using their location within the orchestra, creating waves/fronts of sound that sweep across, and forwards/backwards over the mass of players.

Geography

Continuing where 'Geography' left off, this is from the Composers Orchestral Workshop at the RCM.

Geography Cont.

'In the Company of Nightingales' was commissioned by the Gaudier Ensemble, to remember and celebrate the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska after whom the ensemble was named. Henri was quite a character and talented artist, who was killed aged 23 on June 5th 1915. The body of work he created before he died is impressive, and full of beautiful depictions of people and animals. What struck me most about Henri’s works was the beautifully smooth finish he created with stone, and how many of his sculptures were full of inviting curves I very much wanted to follow with my hand. In trying to express both the aesthetic quality of his style and the emotions and horror of his words, I was drawn to glissandi: held notes sliding up and down to mimic his round contours, and also the physical action of carving stone. His letters refer to nightingales several times, so a flavour of their song appears here and there, reflecting the soundscapes that brought him joy from amongst the gunfire. 

Performed July 9th 2015 by the Gaudier Ensemble at the Cerne Abbas Festival, with Will Dazeley as the solo baritone.

Image: Sleeping Fawn, 1913 (Kettle's Yard)

In The Company Of Nightingales

This piece was written as part of an electroacoustic module at the Royal College of Music in May 2015, using solely small recorded samples of harp with effects from Logic 9, and frequency modulation and granular synthesis in MaxMSP. The simplicity of these two effects really inspired me; and with granular synthesis being so rhythmic and agitated, and frequency modulation of a pure tone being so still and constant, they made me think of the metamorphosis that caterpillars and other insects go through: all the internal rearranging that happens inside a chrysalis to create an entirely new creature. Therefore I called the piece ‘Chrysalis’, and it reflects intense struggles, journeys, and recreations of all kinds.

Recorded at the Royal College of Music Belle Shenkman Studio in May 2015, with fantastic harpist Jan Gorjanc.

Chrysalis

At the centre of this piece is a struggle for dominance, between the live player and the electronic tape; and the player’s fight for independence. It was inspired by a number of things: an episode of Doctor Who, a video game about the rapture, and my own relationship with/uncertainty about technology.

In the Doctor Who episode ‘Midnight’, an unknown being starts to echo people’s voices, then speaks alongside them, and then assumes their voice and makes them the echoer. In ‘Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture’, an entity from space is brought down to Earth and adapts bit by bit, until eventually it removes every person from existence. And even though I am part of the millennial generation, I am already feeling left behind by technology: there is an app for every facet of life, it seems, and I am increasingly uncomfortable seeing how dependent on technology everyone is becoming. 

So I wrote this piece to express my concerns with the draw of technology; in it, the percussionist has been ensnared by ‘The Machine’ and can only create the metallic, rhythmic sounds that it likes - waggling the chains around the drum, and scraping a stick around its brass buttons. But the player has an independent, creative mind and rebels - adding accents to her patterns, and finally drumming freely on the skin. This seems to confuse The Machine, forcing it to listen to her new sounds - putting her in charge at long last. But The Machine is adaptable, and it starts to take hold of her new creations. It swallows them into its repertoire of sounds, warps them to fits its metallic preferences, and leaves her back where she started, but with a bit more of her self and soul lost to The Machine. Hence the title ‘Heuriskein’, the Greek word from which we got ‘heuristics’ - as both player and tape learn and discover new things during the piece.

This piece came about from a collaboration with RCM percussionist Kizzy Brooks, whose playing I recorded in order to simulate the live part on this recording.

Heuriskein

This is an extract of my ten-minute work 'remiscipate', written as part of the RSNO's Composers Hub 2015-16, performed here by Royal College of Music players during the 2016 Composers Orchestral Workshop.

The title ‘remiscipate’ is an amalgamation of two words: ‘reminisce’ and ‘dissipate’. I needed the title to reflect several different things, as the piece is has two main personalities - representing both a literal moving dust cloud, and an ephemeral cloud of memories. It was inspired by footage I saw in October of the Red Road Flats’ destruction in Glasgow. Every video I found of the demolitions captivated me - there was the impressive sonic effect of the explosion (followed by the buildings’ collapse), the visual impact of the outburst and rapid fall of such an enormous mass of material, but also the atmosphere you could sense amongst the crowds that had gathered to watch. There was excitement, trepidation, and shock, but I’m sure that for many there was also sadness and loss - especially those who once made a home in one of the blocks, who watched and remembered a multitude of moments. Every person who saw these events will have seen it from a different angle, and will remember different things more clearly than others, and if all those perspectives could be gathered I think they would look like that dust cloud.

‘remiscipate’ is a musical expression of the enormous swirling dust clouds that engulfed the entire estate after each demolition - material swirls, drifts, bursts suddenly and fades gradually to nothing - but also explores the nature of memory, how strong memories and ghosts in our past can suddenly rise up again, nebulous and indistinct or very clear.

remiscipate (extract)

'Dormientes Bestia' - 'sleeping beast'. This piece was written with the image of a mythological-esque, female/beast hybrid in mind, focusing on the passage of breath and air through the lungs of the performer and out through the instrument. It expresses femininity in an honest way - women can be scary and fierce, too. Wake her at your peril.

For great bass paetzold, and tape.

Dormientes Bestia

and the storm…skirled long, luminous ropes of hail…
         …and I crackled in my waterproof…	
  … And across the Loch, the waterfalls blew right up off the cliff…
                  … And even the dog won’t heel…
… sniffing North addictedly - he saw we had it coming…
   … And across Bracadale…		
             … like a dung beetle that had stolen the sun…
	… And a circlet of iron was torn….
				… and bowled across the thrift…
… And seven wind-whipped cows…
						… And in a rockpool…
								… around and around.

							- Jen Hadfield, Blashey-wadder
 
 
Punctuating the deceptively calm and flowing lines of Hadfield’s poem describing a huge storm is the word ‘And’: every verse after the first starts with it. Combined with her use of the word ‘addictedly’ in the fourth stanza, it made me think of the repetitive feeling of wind and rain - and how, when you’re stuck in it, it feels like a constant, draining stream of ‘and then…’ 

This piece is an exploration of that relentlessness, the rising plumes of wind-whipped water, and the awe-inspiring power of elemental forces on any scale - even on a solo viola.

Commissioned and premiered by Katherine Wren in Shetland, November 2016. Recording by Katherine Wren from Merstham, December 2016

One of the original ideas for this piece came from the patterns of waves on the shore: there is an irregular but mathematical pattern governing how they cross over. I have mainly used this notion in the staggered entries, familiar but morphing phrases, and overlapping notes shared by more than one part. 

The title reflects the few, small musical ideas that make up the piece, and how they spread across the parts and the piece like ripples.

Performed by Ensemble Recherche during the 2016 Weimar Composition Masterclass with Tristan Murail.

wavelet

A song cycle setting three poems by August Stramm: 'Vernichtung', 'Frage', and 'Schrei'.

Despite being very difficult to translate, I immediately found August Stramm’s poems extremely evocative, emotive, and powerful. Most importantly, their abstract style and often frantic pace cried out to be set to music.

In this song cycle, I have tried to capture the vulnerability of a man who was not a natural soldier, and who despaired of war; who was horrified by what he saw, and was moved to capture his thoughts in poetry.

Workshopped and performed by the Helsinki Chamber Choir, as part of the Tenso Young Composers Workshop in Mechelen, May 2017

-
August Stramm

August Stramm (1874-1915) was a German poet and playwright who is considered one of the first of the expressionists. He served in the German Army and was killed in action during World War I.

Vernichtung-Frage-Schrei

A 5-line round inspired by, and in celebration of, the familiar calls of the Speaker of the House of Commons, as 'performed' by John Bercow. Performed by the NYCGB Fellows 2018-19.

Text:
"Hear, hear, hear!"
"Division! Clear the lobby"
"Questions to the Prime Minister"
"Amendment B be made"
"Order!"

Parliament Round

A Baroque gigue / African adzogbo dance fusion, written for the NCEM Composers Competition 2013. Performed by Florilegium at the final in April 2013.

The Dahomey Amazons Take a Tea Break

An experimental piece using voice, flute and the sound of tiny silicon beads spinning inside a wine glass. The voice excerpts include three lines of the John Keats poem "To Autumn" as well as wordless sounds.

Season of Mists

Written for the New Ensemble project at the Royal College of Music. Inspired by the project of the same name: http://longnow.org/

The idea behind this clock is that it will keep time for 10,000 years, alone in a dark cave in the Nevada desert. It will be enormous, so big that visitors will be able to walk amongst its mechanisms.

The Clock of the Long Now

A solo cello piece, written as a response to "Lola smoking" by Alice Pavesi Fiori from the Taylor Wessing Photography competition, in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery. Performed at the NPG in December 2012 by the fantastic Indigo Hicks.

Lola on the Beach

A 'Part B' to "The Dahomey Amazons Take a Tea Break". There were more rhythms and ideas I couldn't include in that piece due to the ensemble size, so I've done this other version using just African drums. Its title comes from the African war dance I used as inspiration and the Baroque gigue that can still be found in there somewhere.

War Gigue

Musician - composer of new music, printer & engraver of other people's music, occasional choral singer, documentation writer for music notation software Dorico.

Plays various instruments, has a flair for languages, has been known to do creative writing, and has a particular fascination with paper.

Profile picture © Piers Rawson, Cerne Abbas Festival

lillieharris

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