Common crane, recorded at 5.30am, 17 July 2021, Central Buchan.

Common cranes are not at all common in this part of the world, and I am not aware that I have ever heard one before. The loudest sound in the recording is, I believe, a yellowhammer, constructing its high-pitched song from a single note, and you will also hear pigeons. The crane is the two-tone honking sound.

Image by Andreas Weith from Wikimedia Commons.

Common Crane

Etude 1496 for piano & 3 synths(25apr22-2) pianistic moods.....

etude1496piano

This bird was singing this catchy little six-note tune loudly and repetitively for hours on end outside my Central Buchan home on 24 June 2022.  Friends who are far more ornithologically aware than I am have identified it as a juvenile song thrush, which has not yet learned the persuasive power of variation in repetition.

Unidentified Bird

CHAINS (2024)

etude1

Final Mix: sturzstrom has been composed as ‘a landslide event for voices’ meaning the work attempts to depict landmass movement and geological process as found along the ‘Jurassic Coast’ of East Devon and Dorset. Naturally, this depiction is not a scientific reconstruction of these processes in sound; rather, an imaginative response to these forces and outcomes as contrived in the composer’s imagination and amplified by the individual contributions of the performers.

sturzstrom was commissioned by the Lighthouse, Poole with support from the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site and the Paul Hamlyn Foundaton as part of Coastal Voices. Coastal Voices has been granted the Inspire mark by the London 2012 Inspire programme. The London 2012 Inspire programme recognises innovative and exceptional projects that are directly inspired by the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

More info: http://marc-yeats.co.uk/2011/12/sturzstrom-2011/

sturzstrom (a landslide event for voices)

4/64 Cavaillé-Coll organ, 1890, St. Ouen, Rouen, France.  Recorded July of 1971.

Pierre Labric, organ:  Te Deum - (Jeanne Demessieux)

Fallen Angel (2007) - live premiere recording.

For four bass clarinets and percussion (With guest percussionist Iain Sandilands)

Duration – 10:00 

Commissioned by The Scottish Clarinet Quartet. 

Premiere 17th August 2008 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.


More about the SCQ: http://www.scq.org.uk/


Fallen Angel (2007)

Projekt 3

Frescobaldi: Toccata per l'Elevazione

Mark Spalding is a musician and visual arts worker resident in rural Angus near Arbroath,Scotland,U.K. As a performer his principal instruments are organ and piano: his repertoire extends from the middle ages to the present day.
 In recent years  he has taken a particular interest in the work of the Arbroath-born composerMorris Pert:(www.morrispert.com) having invited several other composers to write pieces in his memory.
 The harpsichord items were recorded on the fine instrument in the Wighton Heritage Centre in the Wellgate Library,Dundee, Scotland on my occasional visits to help tune, maintain,play and generally stave off neglect and deterioration.
 In 2015, he performed Stockhausen's Tierkreis(signs of the zodiac)throughout the year in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of its composition. He also founded the Intuitive Music ensemble Mars in Aquarius. in 2016 he was appointed organist at Barry Parish church (Church of Scotland), Carnoustie.

Frescobaldi: Toccata per l'Elevazione

Mark Spalding

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