For solo violin, played by Amalia Young and recorded in New College Chapel, Oxford on 13/12/2021

Originally titled 'A'arhiyib'

Composed by Marcello Palazzo

Image: Amalia Young

Sonata (i)

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

'Money' is the first track in a series based on interviews with literary figures - in this case between Germaine Greer and Martin Amis - and is about finding something to worship other than wealth. As Amis says in the interview: ‘Money is the first thing that gets to you unless you have culture to stave it off.’ 

Very honoured that the Roundhouse sponsored music station, In the Dark, selected it as one of the winning entries from over 250 submissions to feature at their event at London's Dalston Curve Gardens. 

Enjoy x

Money

Galactic Ambitions

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

Nothing Ventured

Sitting at my piano
My parents in the kitchen 

Home

Happy to release my second track in this series adapting the words of some of my favourite writers. Here’s ‘Contrarian’, made in dedication to the late journalist provocateur and public intellectual, Christopher Hitchens. You don’t have to agree with everything the ‘Hitch’ said to recognise that he said it well and said it in his own way; as his more recently deceased best friend Martin Amis (see my track ‘Money’) put it: ‘he speaks better than I write.’ I am no longer so aligned with his views, but I hope that I should always hold with one of his last: ‘Always write’.

Contrarian

You can go to Ibiza now and have fun with your friends.

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

Matt Pope