Program Notes:

We all inhabit familiar spaces. The most familiar of places, those that we feel most attached to and contained by, are fertile grounds for the unexpected.

In massive, cookie cutter style apartment complexes of the mid-20th and 21st centuries, we see individuals decorating identical spaces in myriad ways, expressing culture, tastes, and trends. If you enter different units in the same building, you have a feeling of a familiar space – a space which might appear different in the most superficial of ways, but at its core, is simply a replica of a space. How we interact with these familiar spaces is determined by the relationships that we have formed with our own space. We explore different spaces in a similar way, imbuing these spaces with simultaneous meaning and purpose.

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Performed by Open Union
Modular Synth: Peter Bell
Electric Guitar: Patrick Ellis

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Bio:

Paolo Griffin is a composer based in Toronto, Canada, whose music explores focused/unfocussed listening, repetition, generative composition, and microtonality, while maintaining a focus on close collaboration and creative spontaneity with the performers he works with.

Paolo is the Artistic and Executive Director of Freesound, a Toronto-based collective that consists of a core group of the city's most adventurous young musicians and interpreters of contemporary music. Freesound present concerts throughout the year with an interest in the work of emerging composers.

A fierce advocate of accessible arts and inclusive practices, Paolo is also the Managing Director of Xenia Concerts, a Toronto-based charity that focuses on presenting accessible concerts and musical events for autism and neurodiverse communities. Through his work with Xenia, Paolo has helped to shape such programs as Sound.colLAB - a collaborative project in which seven neurodivergent artists have co-created an original piece of music under the mentorship of
professional musicians.

2022-23 engagements include lectures at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, and the Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival's Widening the Circle initiative where he appeared as a mentor composer. Other events include premieres with the Continuum Ensemble, with saxophonist
David Zucchi in Toronto, and at the Aurore Renaissance Music Festival in Helsinki. Paolo's music has been featured in at festivals across Canada, including Ottawa Chamberfest, Toronto Summer Music, and Big Lake Arts Festival. His music can be heard in concert and on the radio
by performers and ensembles such as Continuum Ensemble (CA), Residentie Orkest (NL), The New European Ensemble (NL), Avanti! Chamber Music (FI), Thin Edge New Music Collective(CA), Duo Holz (CA), Freesound (CA), and more.

Paolo holds degrees from the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague where he studied with Peter Adriaansz and Martijn Padding. Other teachers have included Linda
Catlin Smith, Anthony Tan, Juhani Nuorvala, Chaya Czernowin, Mayke Nas, Matthew Whittall, Jukka Tiensuu, Rodney Sharman, Gary Kulesha, Nobert Palej, Huba de Graaff, Jan van de Putte,
Ana Sokolovic, Peter Ablinger, Christopher Theofanidis, Mario Garuti, Dmitri Tomozco, Amy Beth Kirsten, and Chen Yi.

Paolo's sits on the board of Musicworks Magazine. His work and research is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canadian New Music Network.

Paolo Griffin - Familiar Spaces (2022) - Live at Centrala, Birmingham

From a new EP 

https://robertnettleship.bandcamp.com/album/doodle-music-ep

Doodle I

The Joy of Christmas for Orchestra Nicolas Kingman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8ax2AXV3T8

For John Tilbury (2012)
Composer: Matthew Lee Knowles
Pianist: Kate Ledger

November 2nd at 2:30pm
St Pancras Clock Tower, London

Recording: John-Henry Baker
Colourist: Juno Lee

With special thanks to Peter Tompkins

For John Tilbury (performed by Kate Ledger)

On the day’s
threshold she wakes
to take up
hammer and chisel

‘The Stone Flower’ is a reflection on the process of making and the joy it can bring. A stone carver becomes lost in the flow of the creative process, sculpting a flower from a block of green malachite. As she works, she reflects on the embodied artistic process. 

Composer: Lucy Armstrong 
Words: Rebecca Hurst 
Mezzo Soprano: Jade Moffat
Pianist: Alice Turner 

An original work from Glyndebourne’s Balancing the Score composer Lucy Armstrong

Balancing the Score is supported by donations to Glyndebourne’s New Generation Programme. 

The Stone Flower was commissioned as part of Glyndebourne’s Jerwood Pit Perfect scheme funded by the Jerwood Foundation and other generous supporters.

Recording engineer: Maxim Gamble



The Stone Flower

Stylophone: Katie Axelsen 
Casio Keyboard: Samuel Pradalie 
Recycled Percussion: Will Frampton 

I wrote this composition for instruments that I found in charity shops and the recycling,  Stylophone, Casio Keyboard, glass bottles, and bell. The composition is separated into six episodes. 

Austerity Music for Recycled Instruments

A little arrangement of Wexford Carol for clarinet, strings and Celeste.

The Wexford Carol

Open Union is an experimental music duo made up of composer-performers Peter Bell (modular synthesiser) and Patrick Ellis (electric guitar) based in the UK.

Described by the treasured composer Howard Skempton as being, ‘sometimes subtle and unstable; sometimes rich and dense’, the duo aims to build up strong collaborative relationships to create new works. Their current collaborators are Christine Cornwell, Wilson Leywantono, May Chi, Paolo Griffin and Seán Clancy.

The duo have performed across the UK at events such as SAOM, Ealing Extranormal, AMOK, Don’t Mind Control,  Birmingham Modular Organisation and CODA Festival. In 2023, they undertook a mini tour of The Netherlands as part of the Sounding Here concert series, where they performed at Splendor in Amsterdam and Batavierhuis in Rotterdam.

In 2025, they co-hosted a portrait concert with saxophonist David Zucchi featuring music by Paolo Griffin at the Hundred Years Gallery, and earlier that year, they supported Passepartout Duo at Centrala Space, Birmingham as part of their UK Tour.