for soprano (with bells) and double bass
text from agnes martin (used with permission)
live recording of premiere performance
stephanie lamprea : james banner duo
the old hairdresser's, glasgow
8.6.2022
recorded and mixed by james banner

lines going this way and lines going that way

Tracklist:

8B4 - Mary Jane Leach
Light Up Your Eyes - Stina Stjern
Blue Car - Joanne Robertson 
Ouroboros - Ava Elless
My Spine - Björk & Evelyn Glennie
zero - Oscar Ridout
Ciel Bouillé - Delphine Dora
La Légende d’Eer (part 3) - Iannis Xenakis
R U WELL? - Rat Heart Ensemble
I Chase You Like Light On A Sundial - Jonnine
Dolphins Climb onto Shore for the First Time - Mica Levi & Oliver Coates
Palace Filled with Love - APB
The Elephant Man - The Girls
Labour of Love - Hue and Cry
The Guardian Angel Is Watching Over Us - Golden Flamingo Orchestra
I Zimbra - Talking Heads
Picture of Bunny Rabbit - Arthur Russell 
Hard - SOPHIE
cloudbasting - DJ Ltd.
Leaves - Laurel Halo 
[old songs/ new songs/] together song(s) 1 - Lucy Havelock

Old Songs / New Songs / Together Songs w/ Lucy Havelock - Aaja Channel 1 - 17 07 23

for solo bass clarinet

performed by Thomas Knollys in Manchester, May 2023

Viscous Impulse (2023)

Premiered on 26 April 2023 by the Explore Ensemble at the Royal College of Music, London.

http://explore-ensemble.com

A Separate Peace (2023)

for bassoon, trumpet & celeste

recorded by Britten Sinfonia in Cambridge, September 2023

Strands of Black Magic opens with formal interplay, where sharp, active objects are embedded within a viscid musical agar. The celeste stands in the centre as a miniature belfry while the bassoon and trumpet dance around it, electrifying one another; one flatlines, the other is resuscitated. The music gains elasticity, traversing various fluidities, and the ensemble breathes as a single organism. Dense counterpoint bubbles away in the final section, with particles and molecules ricocheting, colliding, bursting, dividing. Activity grinds to a halt, the music becomes a chemical suspension, and the piece ends.

Strands of Black Magic (2023)

Sultan of sentiment for contrabass recorder

Double percussion concerto, performed by Sirocco percussion duo (Tori Azzalini-Machecler and Isaac Harari) with the RCM Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Frank Zielhorst.

Many Hands In High Places

A meditative piece for piano trio, recorded here by the Fidelio Trio.

Belles

Composed in 1966, this ambitious piano work is considered a key piece in the history of Australian piano music.  At that time Lumsdaine, born in Sydney in 1931, had been living in the UK since 1953.  As the title indicates it is inspired by the life and death of the famous Australian anti-hero Ned Kelly, on whom Lumsdaine had been contemplating an opera (to a libretto by another prominent Australian living in the UK, Peter Porter).
When that project foundered (mainly as neither Lumsdaine nor Porter could really envisage Kelly onstage), Lumsdaine turned his attention instead to creating a large scale piano piece on the same topic.  The 'ground' of the title is an immediately audible harmonic area around which everything orbits and to which the music returns almost obsessively, eventually to the total exclusion of anything else.  This happens in a set of 'cycles' which comprise the 5 sections of the work.
This is also the first work in which Lumsdaine's increasing interest in the natural world - specifically birdsong - becames audible, especially in section 3 (described by the composer as 'a clamorous aubade' and audibly indebted to the songs of Australian magpies) and in section 4 (a lyrical intermezzo entitled 'An Aria for Kelly'); finally, in section 5 only the bells remain, tolling endlessly on the harmonic ground of the work.
This exceptional interpretation is by the renowned UK pianist Ronald Lumsden (no relation) who until the early 1980s was very prominent in British new music circles.  It's a model performance and magnificent piano playing by any standard.

David Lumsdaine: Kelly Ground

Tellurian (2024)

flexible instrumentation video score

performed by CoMA Manchester, March 2024

Television Ballade

composer, london

architectures, dreams, environments, songs

ridoutoscar@gmail.com