2pac can rap over anything
these are facts

i want you pac

(AKA "A Song for Someplace")
Performed on the 1st of April 2015 by Spectrum for the 2015 Carlaw/Ogston Composition Award

This piece uses material originally composed as a movement of a piano quartet which focused on the development and simultaneous variation of a few melodic fragments - but then re-worked in new ways and incorporating an entirely new section based on my first experiment with spectral composition - prompted by discovering the music of Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail.
Spurred on by a sense of "how hard could it be?" I decided to try my hand at spectral composition, and obtained the spectra of a soprano voice, and various percussion instruments. I then proceeded to try and orchestrate them for the forces available - while also trying only to select partials of the spectra that would allow them to match the colours of the rest of the piece. 
The result is a piece of music in three sections - The two outer sections that focus on the rhythmic interplay between the instruments and the interactions between the different melodic fragments, and then the middle section where the music seems to open itself up into a series of resonances, and explores the interactions between singular notes and timbres as the spectra are allowed to develop in the surrounding acoustic.
One day I will learn how to write music that's easy to perform.

Interplay

Performed by Plus Minus Ensemble, 29th June 2018, Silk STreet Music Hall, London.

Transitions - Plus Minus Ensemble (excerpt)

‘Haywire Drones’ is an electronic composition that is made up from pre-recorded manipulated sounds from playing the viola, singing and tearing up paper. This work can be said to be one long drone that is centered around C with other sounds and tones shining light on the drone and texture as a whole. The work is in a three-part structure which begins voice by voice with bursts of violent phrases shining out of the texture. Eventually with the singing of a loud G tone (about 1.44 minutes in), we reach the second section. The bursts of phrases become much more active in this section obscuring the sound of the singing G. When this G note finally is heard without interruption the singer proceeds to finish his phrase with a descending line which is then layered around all voices, and thus we reach the final section. The bursts of electronics become more and more frantic and constant until we suddenly come to an abrupt ending.

Copyright (c) 2018 Mark McNamee

Haywire Drone

Performed by the Caeli Quintet at St Mary's Church, Twickenham
Commissioned by the Richmond Concert Society

photo credit Ryan Howard Photography

Return - for wind quintet

Premiere recording of "Four perpetual distractions and an act of resistance", 4-6-2018, Fentener van Vlissingenzaal, Utrecht
Linde van de Ven, violin
Peter Sluijs, piano

Four perpetual distractions (and an act of resistance)

A location-specific work for cello and concert hall.
Recorded 4-6-2018, Fentener van Vlissingenzaal, Utrecht

Cello: Berend Stumphius
Hall: Orrin van Leeuwen, Jochem van Hoogdalem, Remco Jacobs, Kostas Zisimopoulos, Annalena Hoyer

Kammerkonzert

A chamber-opera for 3 soloists, choir and Pierrot ensemble
Text by Sanne Schuhmacher
Written 2017-2018 for the Opera Forward Festival in Amsterdam
Recorded 18-3-2018, Stopera, Amsterdam
Soloists: Romy Vreden, Daniël Attema, Femke Hulsman
Ensemble: Miquel Gómez, Hilde Wollenstein, Jurriaan Klapwijk, Katerina Papakostaki, Peter Sluijs
Choir: HKU Opleiding Docent Muziek
Conductor: Jacob Tapia Nieto

Kreeftenkok

after BWV 232/17

Recorded 21-08-2018, Zonnehuis, Amsterdam
Ricciotti Ensemble, cond. Leonard Evers

Bach in Havana

My arrangement of "O seu olhar" by Ceumar Coelho.
Performed October 2016 in Brazil by Ceumar & the Ricciotti Ensemble, cond. Leonard Evers

Ceumar - O Seu Olhar

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYMnDkaLeUe0dZgExGn2qLg?view_as=subscriber

Twitter: @dauntlessidiot

Interplay

Peter Davis

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