Gith's... FABs!

The Smith Quartet.  27 February 2009.  Artrix, Bromsgrove

Photo:Robert Taylor 
http://taylor-photo.co.uk/

Dances On a Ground (2009) for string quartet

Endymion Ensemble, Richard Baker (cond.), 18 June 2007, Christ Church, Spitalfields, London



Three spatially separated ensembles appear in the following order:

1) Tempo indication is Parlante ('as if speaking') which in this case describes the jerky dialogue between oboe/trumpet and bass clarinet (in its highest register, like a falsetto voice) The viola acts as a compass, always in normal tuning, unlike the microtonally distorted oboe and trumpet.

2) Lower (in pitch) than the first ensemble, a duo of piano and vibraphone is embedded in sustained lines of flutes, trombone and cello. These intermittent wisps of melody become more mechanical.

3) A more florid take on the preceding groups, this violin duo is, in both pitch and spatial placement the highest layer, slithering around within a narrow band of pitches. 

In the exposition these three layers are presented in a fairly clear-cut manner, with some overlap where all three are playing at the same time; but as the work progresses they start to congeal and diversify in different ways.

The title occurred to me for various reasons; firstly a preoccupation with the original versions of Bruckner's Third and Sibelius's Fifth Symphonies; but also an interest in the brisk developments which have taken place in the Spitalfields area: I am thinking of the demolition of the Bishopsgate Goods Yard (an adjunct to Brick Lane Market: murky archways of which I have cherished memories) and the exciting juxtapositions of modern (ensemble 1) and old architecture (ensemble 2).



Original Version (2007) for 12 instruments

Brunel Ensemble, conducted by Christopher Austin

"The new work was Viscid, by the 23-year-old Morgan Hayes - a great title and a promising piece, unfolding tangled skeins of melody over dark block chords…"
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 7 January 1997


Viscid (1996) for 15 players

Huw Watkins (piano) 
performed in Vilnius, St. Catherine's Church, at the International Contemporary Music Festival
DRUSKOMANUA 2009

alternative version by Jonathan Powell available:
http://www.nmcrec.co.uk/recording/violin-concerto-0

Strides Book2 (2007) for solo piano : pieces 4 and 5

FM Hi LOW - "Riches" off the Everyone EP. (C)2013
written by FRASE
Riches
All the riches in the world
wont save you.

When you're down pick it up again
When you're down pick it up again

You've got your friends and your family ties
keep them close to the heart and it will be warm inside
Universal love sends vibrations,
powerful emancipation
for the heart of every nation.

All the riches in the world
wont save you.
All the riches in the world
wont save you.

When you're down pick it up again
when you're down pick it up again

the rise and fall of the ocean tide
sometimes you get wet 
and sometimes you stay dry
Universal love sends vibrations
powerful emancipation 
for the heart of every nation.

All the riches in the world
wont save you
All the riches in the world
wont save you from your self

When the planets align
and the sun, moon, and earth shine
the earth shines 
the earth shines

We will know that we will be able 
to weather the storm keeping it warm
All the riches in the world
wont save you from your self

Produced by BoRza Ghomeshi.



Riches

Text by Lydia White
Soprano: Celine Wasmer
Piano: Lucas Buclin
Violin: Francois Girard Garcia
Viola: Noémi Bialobroda
Cello: Hilde Skomedal

I am your reflection (extracts)

I am your reflection: III

GHB/tanzaggregat

Twenty layers of the same recording of Beethoven's unusual and delightful Choral Fantasy [Fantasia in C minor, op. 80 - Alfred Brendel]; placed on top of each other, with each successive track squished a second shorter, resulting in bizarre reiterations bordering on the electronic, looking at itself between two mirrors garnering impressive cycles, amassing reverberated windings and pulsating extreme overlapping echoes - in this way the sum of all the parts gradually becomes blended into a logically chaotic brouhaha.

Choral Fantasy [EXTREME REMIX: 1808/2017]

Soloist (mandolin, percussion) plus fixed media, lighting, and image projection.

Ian Shanahan - Arcturus Timespace (1987 & 1994) [studio]

EXAUDI

Juliet Fraser, Amanda Morrison (soprano)
Lucy Goddard (mezzo)
Tom Williams (countertenor)
David de Winter, Alastair Putt (tenor)
Simon Whiteley, Jimmy Holliday (bass)

James Weeks (conductor)

world premiere 
live performance

Milton Court Concert Hall, London
22 March 2019

commissioned by EXAUDI with funds provided by Arts Council England's National Lottery Project Grants scheme

'Pocket Universe is an ebullient, and at times zany, setting of words from Galileo Galilei's Dialogo i due massimi sistemi del mondo tolemaico e copernicano and Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in their respective languages. What interests me in using these texts is not so much their meaning—which most of us know and few of us understand—but the energy behind them. The same goes for the music whose material is on the whole commonplace, but whose energy accumulates on account of dialectical/modular principles and coalesces into a self-supporting “universe”. These principles can be explained by analogy. Imagine musical blocks that snap together in various ways, like Lego, or assembling a wardrobe from IKEA without the instructions: by such principles a novel entity is created. The processes in the music combine rigour and “Eureka moments” in much the same way as I imagine these authors did.'

Geoff Hannan: Pocket Universe (2016)

Suite of Nine Pieces for Solo Fingers

1. Left Hand, 3-4
2. Left Hand Thumb
3. Left Hand, 1-2; Right Hand, 1-2
4. Left Hand, 1,2,5; Right Hand, 2
5. Left Hand, 4
6. Right Hand, 1-5
7. Left Hand, 2; Right Hand, 2
8. Grand Finale: All TEN fingers!
9. Epilogue: Two Wee Fingers

Solo Fingers

Rachmaninov's 2nd + 3rd piano concertos, superimposed; the 2nd up a semitone + the 3rd down a semitone, with the duration of each layered movement dictated by the lesser length

Moderato Allegro Ma Non Tanto [I]

Photo credit: Robert Taylor 
http://taylor-photo.co.uk/

Dances On a Ground (2009) for string quartet

Morgan Hayes

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