what holds them together (2020), for portative organ. Performed by Ryszard Lubieniecki (https://soundcloud.com/ryszard-lubieniecki).

what holds them together

Written for and performed by the AURA Contemporary Ensemble.

Clarinet - Mauricio Franco
Violin - Miranda Hollingsworth
Piano - Ming Yang

Branches

Fourth art song premiered at Operation Opera Festival 2022, hosted by Four Corners Ensemble.

James Heer, baritone
Annie Flood, piano

poetry by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
setting of Night from "Sea Garden"

Night

Second art song premiered at the Operation Opera Festival 2022, hosted by Four Corners Ensemble.

Ketti Jane Muschler, soprano
Annie Flood, soprano

poetry by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
setting of Huntress from "Sea Garden"

Huntress

First art song premiered at the Operation Opera Festival 2022, hosted by Four Corners Ensemble.

Ketti Jane Muschler, soprano
Annie Flood, soprano

poetry by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
setting of Sea Rose from "Sea Garden"

Sea Rose

May 2022, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Toru Takemitsu Composition Award

SHINOZAKI Yasuo (conductor)  
Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra

KEBESU - Circle of Flame (2020-21) for orchestra

Eleanor Alberga - Cwicseolfor
For solo piano 
Performed by Isata Kanneh-Mason

For more details and score: https://ram.ac.uk/multimedia/cwicseolfor

About 200 PIECES:

As part of its Bicentenary celebrations, the Royal Academy of Music embarked on an ambitious project, inviting 200 composers to write 200 new works for solo instrument or voice. The recordings and scores for these works, written for every principal study instrument taught at the Academy, are now available, creating a new library of varied contemporary works by many of the world’s leading composers.
ram.ac.uk/200-pieces

Isata Kanneh-Mason appears courtesy of Decca Classics.

Cwicseolfor

Alberga - Cwicseolfor

This piece pays homage to the various heritages represented through the commissioners, the composer and where our lives converge. It is a snapshot of how various cultures influence each other, and how idiosyncrasies that are found in one culture can be present in another. This emphasizes the notion of having more similarities than differences; a call to unity. 

Hence the name Pepperpot: a dish which is a stew of sorts originated by the indigenous Arawaks in the Caribbean. This dish has evolved through the various means of cultural exchange and thus symbolic in this work how this exchange bring about new vitality across cultures. 

Movement I: pays hommage to Nataliya Sukhina's Russian/Ukrainian heritage and draws from Slavic popular and folk songs she heard growing up.
Movement II: pays hommage to Carla Davis-Cash's Puerto Rican heritage and draws for the themes of Salsa.
Movement III: pays hommage to Mikhail Johnson's Jamaican heritage and draws from the themes of Jamaican folk song and traditional dance forms.  
Movement IV: pays hommage to all of the cultures in the first three movements but with a Texan flare as that is where we all met.

PEPPERPOT I. Homage to Czech Heritage

Eleanor Alberga - Arise, Athena! (2015 Proms Last Night WP)

Seattle Symphony Young Composers Workshop Year 1 piece.

Rainfire for Wind Quintet (2005)

Emporium

Mikhail Johnson (1989) is one of Jamaica’s promising young pianists and composers. Winner of the Jamaica Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition for Young Musicians Senior Division in June of 2009 and the piano section of the Jamaica Music Teachers’ Association Music Competition in November of the same year, composer of piano and choral music, he has made consistent strides in the music profession.

As an active composer, He has been successful in competitions such being a finalist in the inaugural Cantus Ensemble Composition Competition in London where his composition Rose of Sharon received its world premiere and recording at the St. Gabriel’s Church in Pimlico, London by the Cantus Ensemble. ​In 2016 he was a winner of the North South Consonance Inc. Call for Scores resulting in world premiere performance of his piano work “Fantastic 4” at The Spectrum in New York City, and the Young and Emerging Composers Competition which led to the U.S. Premiere of “Misereatur” a version for string orchestra by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in their NEOSonicFest Concert series.

In 2011 he had completed his book of 24 Choral Benedictions; published in 2016 which became a wonderful addition to his output of several choral anthems, Jamaican patriotic anthems, musical settings of poems and arrangements of African American Spirituals and hymns.

Johnson earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Science and a minor in music from Northern Caribbean University (NCU) and currently attends the Bowling Green State University where he is reading for double Masters of Music degrees in piano performance and composition under the tutelage of Dr. Robert Satterlee (piano). Drs. Christopher Dietz and Mikel Kuehn (composition).

PEPPERPOT I. Homage to Czech Heritage

Mikhail Johnson

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