Chorale Prelude: When I survey the Wond'rous Cross

Chorale Prelude: Amazing Grace

Impromptu Valentine, originally an improvisation on 14 February 2022

Impromptu Valentine (composed & performed by MMS)

This 10 minute meditation is a  soft and soothing exploration of how you experience kindness and how you can harmonise it internally so that it’s there for you at any time. This refreshing pause can be used as often as you like. May it brings joy to your day.

Harmonising With Kindness

Ian Thompson (tenor) with Susan Daniel (alto) and Peter Hill (piano). Semichorus including Susan OGrady conducted by Nicholas Conran. Translated by MMS and produced by him at IBC Studios 1969

Diary Of One Who Disappeared 8

Sonnets to Orpheus 6 (Sonnet 1.17) Music /lyrics by Michael Maxwell Steer based on the German of Rainer Maria Rilke.

©2001. ®2004 by Frances M Lynch with the Argonaut Ensemble (Carlos Lopez-Réal saxes, Andrew Cottee percussion, Nick Hayward bass, MMS piano /director)

Sonnets to Orpheus 12: Silent companion of the empty spaces

Notes From Janàček’s Diary is an adaptation - written, composed, performed and realised by MMS - of certain fragments of Janacek's occasional musical text jottings collected & published by Vilem Tausky. It was commissioned by BBCr3 Features, producer John Theocharis, and created at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop over the summer of 1990, thanks to the cooperation of Brian Hodgson.
   The acoustic recording took place in June 1990 at the Paris Studio, L Regent St London, with Janacek as an old man played by John Moffat, Janacek as a young man by Stephen Garlick, all women's voices by Der Shin Hwang, violin Wilfred Gibson, piano MMS, and the children's voices of Laura-Jane Rich, Suzi Steer & Serafina Steer.
    The subsequent electronic realisation took MMS over 40 studio days in Maida Vale.
    Everybody in BBCr3 Features loved it. The one person who didn't was John Drummond, Controller R3; thus Notes From Janàček’s Diary was both my finest and final programme for BBC Radio.
   More details: http://msteer.co.uk/creative/janacek/janacek.html

Notes From Janàček’s Diary 6: The Beginning of a Novel

Between 2006-2012 Susan Nares & I would often meet at her home in Chewton Glen Farm, Christchurch, for spiritually-attuned improvisation. See also video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUID9Pg93l4&list=PLDA07DF0F23DCBECD  

Seven. SN, MS. 22/07/2007

Sometimes. SN, MS. 22/07/2007

Tagore's words
I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold! I found that service was joy.

I made this setting on reading the words at 3AM, and dedicated it to the memory of Monica Trinkwon who had died 36h earlier.

Awakening. Demo of MMS setting of words by Rabindranath Tagore

0:00     1st mvt:     Son Montuno
5:07      2nd mvt: Bolero-Chá
8:08     3rd mvt: Fantasía

Please listen with headphones!

Awakening. Demo of MMS setting of words by Rabindranath Tagore

MMSteer

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