My submission to Jake and Amir's podcast 'If I Were You'.
Jack Shenton plays some real nice sax, and thanks to Lue Green who rapped on the track and played in bass and worked out some beats. Thanks

8 More Years - ft. Lue Green

1. John Bence: Raphael, Archangel of Tiphareth
2. Moderat: The Mark - Interlude
3. Meredith Monk: Liminal
4. Jónsi, Alex Somers: Boy 1904

Inspired by Sara Mohr-Pietsch's 'Night Tracks' Selection on BBC Radio 3, 13/02/23

John Bence/Meredith Monk/Moderat/Jónsi, Alex Sommers

Portobello Beach, a song to a single day

I didn’t plan to play this. It came out while I thought on a group of close friends I’ve known since I was little and who knew each other long before I was born. What started some time in the ‘90s as a three day NYE trip to the Scottish borders has become a central thread in a collective story, binding us together in ways that are profoundly difficult to express in words.

I have stared out of the car window as a boy, adolescent, and adult, and the sense while driving south of waking from a shared dream is as painful as I approach 30 as it was at 15, and the mystery is both clearer and more obscure. I don’t know if this makes sense, but I hope the piece goes someway there. This piece is about friendship and about time.

If you like it, you can find the track Spotify and other platforms: ‘Innerleithen, or a song for a certain time’ - as well as a video recording of this live performance on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DTFHPevLfAU?feature=shared

Innerleithen, or a song for a certain time

Sitting at my piano
My parents in the kitchen 

Home

My cover of 'Jacob and the Stone', from Emile Mosseri's beautiful score for the film 'Minari'. Do watch the movie if you haven't already.

Jacob and the Stone

An improvisation that was interrupted by a cold caller to my home phone

Improvisation No. 1 with interruption

Galactic Ambitions

A reel of excerpts from tracks I've written to give an idea of my sound.

Audio Reel

From my score for Magdalen College School's production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare. The music accompanies Oberon as he frees Titania from her enchantment with Bottom. 

Photo credit: David Fisher

'Be As Thou Wast Wont To Be' - A Midsummer Night's Dream

From my score for Magdalen College School's production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare. This music underscores Oberon's request that his assistant Puck should fetch him a 'little western flower'. Once obtained, he will use it to set an enchantment on Titania so that 'the next thing that she waking looks upon - be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, on meddling monkey, or on busy ape - she shall pursue it with the soul of love.'

Thanks to Lara Agar for beautiful work recording violin. 

Photo credit: David Fisher

'Well Go Thy Way' - A Midsummer Night's Dream

From my score for Magdalen College School's production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare. This piece underscores the final scene in which Oberon and Titania lead their fellow fairies in a procession while delivering a shared speech, 'Through the house give gathering light'. On finishing the speech Oberon tells the fairies to bless the house and its residents, and to meet him again at break of day. The king and queen remove to the shadows with all but one of their retinue, Puck, who remains to conclude the play:

'If we shadows have offended, 
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.'

Many thanks to Lara Agar and Henry Page for their beautiful work on violin and cello.

Photo credit: David Fisher

Matt Pope

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