'Woodcolours', for solo guitar, is inspired by 'Radical Beauty', an exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery of woodcuts by the abstract expressionist artist Helen Frankenthaler. The five short movements explore the relationship between the craft of shaping and colouring pieces of wood and the art of creating lines and colours out of the guitar.

I Haze
II Groove
III Purple
IV Creeping
V Butterfly

Performed by Jianhao Zhou at the Royal Academy of Music on the 27th April 2022.

Image: 'Snow Pines' by Helen Frankenthaler

Woodcolours

Diverging and Becoming (2023) for six trumpets

Performed by the Academy Trumpet Ensemble, Royal Academy of Music, 26.01.2022

Trumpets: Jasmin Ghera, Will Thomas, Mia Plummer, Volodymyr Bykhun, Sigrid Bengtsson, and Thomas Leighton-Jones

Programme Note:

The initial impetus behind this piece concerns trumpeter Miles Davis. I learned a crucial lesson about Davis when I saw a scene from the 2004 film ‘Collateral’, where a character claims that the jazz icon learned music at the Juilliard School of Music. As a deadly assassin, Tom Cruise’s character then violently corrects him, stating that the jazz legend dropped out of Juilliard to learn with Charlie Parker instead.
To sum up my perspective on this revealing film scene, the following piece takes inspiration
from the notion of musicians starting on one path, diverging from it, and forming their own. Using Miles’ instrument (an instrument that can shout or sing, shriek or soothe) this piece for six trumpets uses this notion of becoming to drive its structure and character.

Diverging And Becoming

Disco! Disco! Good! Good? is a vibrant work that celebrates the disco era and its cultural impact on music. The piece examines the shift from vinyl to tape recording technology, which revolutionised the music industry, and how it shaped the sound of disco music.

The piece pays tribute to the queer ballroom culture that emerged during the disco era, which created safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ individuals to express themselves through dance and fashion. It highlights the significance of queer communities in shaping the cultural landscape of music and its influence on society at large.

At its core, Disco! Disco! Good! Good? reflects on the fear of being discovered that many queer individuals experienced during the era. It acknowledges the bravery and resilience of those who defied societal norms and danced freely to disco..

Through its energetic rhythms and lively melodies, Disco! Disco! Good! Good? invites listeners to join in the celebration of disco music and its cultural legacy. It is a testament to the enduring power of music to connect people and bring joy to our lives.

Disco! Disco! Good! Good?

Disco! Disco! Good! Good? - Performed by The Riot Ensemble

Thoughts on Sound and Silence
Composed by Declan Molloy
Words by Jemma Borg
First performance by Cerys MacAllister, with Declan Hickey and Eliza Nagle (the Regency Duo) at St. Peter’s Belsize, 17.01.2024

I. The honourable guitar (0.00)
II. Vow of silence (5.21)
III. Song (8.57)

Programme Note
Thoughts on Sound and Silence is a set of three musical contemplations on the poetry of Jemma Borg. Composer Declan Molloy’s relationship with Borg’s works began on a piece he wrote for narrator, bass recorder, and harp called ‘What the Future Holds’ (2022) - using the poem ‘Little Rivers Feed Bigger Rivers’ to inform the narration and structure of the work. Molloy has always been interested in the poet’s inventive uses of punctuation and speech rhythms, as well as the visual presentation of her poems in her published anthologies ‘Wilder’ and ‘The Illuminated World’.


The first song, ‘The Honourable Guitar’, uses a Borg text from ‘Wilder’ that takes inspiration from Rodrigo’s iconic ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’, thus inflicting the same influence on the lyrical, calming, and impassioned qualities of the music. As the title implies, the guitar part drives much of this opening number’s character. After the atmosphere of this song dissipates, the second song ‘Vow of Silence’ offers stillness and calm, foregrounding the vocal line in its expansive and expressive phrases. The final entry to the cycle is simply called ‘Song’, chosen due to its regularity and song-like quality, lending the cycle a jubilant finale.


The honourable guitar
after Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez

Music begins in the throat, it begins like regret:
soft, quiet, adagio, in the second movement already,
grief flowering where joy had walked
in magnificent gardens: ‘the fragrance of magnolias,
the singing of birds,’ the blind man said
as the fountain’s mouth spilled over
into the echoing chamber of rosewood.
Molto appassionato - the trials of skin against vibration -
and the music paces, backs down, breaks off,
breaks down, speaks, is silent,
then grows again. It is accompanied, it is alone -
the heart cut to strings in its dark room.


Vow of silence

The mind, yes, the mind has mountains:
I grew them, hour by hour,
like layers of pearls.

Conscience - that sea -
is always raising its white-capped torments,
but I will not be wrecked in the storm.

The mouth of the sea
sighs all day long,
but the desert expects no lover.

I tell you, love is a prison
covered with the mouths of hunger.
This road here will take me to it.


Song

who is the woman
whose washing’s in the wind

who stands at the doorway
believing in the wind

as if it were a mystery
which she had seen and named

a mystery slowly filling
each buoyant sheet with sun

the wind is in her sorrow
the wind is in her lungs

who is the woman
who’s singing in the wind

the wind that washed her song
lays its breath on her tongue

Thoughts on Sound and Silence (full song cycle)

The material for this work dates from Fall 2015. In March 2017, I rediscovered and remixed the work. All news samples come from one weekend's NPR 'Hourly Broadcasts'. For avid NPR listeners, like myself, these hourly broadcasts are part of the background noise, but if you listen closely to the stories, there is a darkness coming.

315 Ensemble: Live at Centrala

Everyday America (2017)

v. rough bedroom recording for your ear gazing x.

dearest (Buddy Holly cover)

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The Natural Order of Things

The Natural Order Of Things

Oran Johnson is a London-based composer and multi-instrumentalist whose music is influenced by an eclectic variety of experience and listening.

In 2023 he released 'Landscapes', an EP of six pieces for electric guitar that he wrote and recorded over the summer of that year. They're pieces that bring together different aspects of his musical life, influenced as much by his experiences of playing guitar in indie bands as his experiences of composing for classical ensembles.  Each track presents a different atmosphere, creating a journey through energetic rhythms, ambient moods and distorted textures. They also each feature a different way of playing the guitar, from using a cello bow to rubbing the strings with a coin.

Oran has also written orchestral music, often juxtaposing rhythmic riffs with slower, melodic sections such as in 'Quilt', which was premiered in 2023 by the Manson Ensemble, conducted by Geoffrey Paterson, and 'Rupture' which was workshopped in 2022 by the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Aaron Holloway-Nahum. He has also written music that features electronics, often drawing on hip-hop production techniques such as sampling, as demonstrated in 2023's 'Glass Songs' and 2022's 'Tear it apart', which was highly commended in the Alan Bush Composition Prize 2022.​

He has also composed film scores, including for Katie King’s 'Made for Duty Overseas' which has been screened at film festivals in the UK, Germany, Estonia, Italy and Mexico.

Woodcolours

Oran Johnson

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