Performed with/by CoMA Glasgow, March 2020

Breathing

Movement I of Ridge, for solo soprano and amplified piano

On mountains in winter, spindrift is snow that is caught by a strong wind and blown off the hill in something resembling a faint cloud. It is a very beautiful thing in good weather but winter mountaineering can be extremely dangerous for the unprepared when the weather closes in. What was previously an extremely beautiful thing transforms into something extremely menacing. This piece is something of an ode to winter mountaineering. It attempts to capture both the beauty of a clear day in the mountains and the chill of the cold and the danger.


Soprano: Jillian Bain Christie
Piano: Andrew Fowler

Recorded at King's College Chapel, Aberdeen University on 23/3/16 as part of the Carlaw/Ogston composition award finals with the Spectrum ensemble.

Spindrift

Assynt Sounds. A series of soundscape recordings made on a trip to this area of the northwest highlands whenever I remembered to record. Often taken on the spur of the moment, so quality is not guaranteed.
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All derogatory terms for contemporary music aside, on my way back from the falls I couldn't help but enjoy the amazingly clear sound from this gate near the bottom of the trail.

Assynt Sounds 5: Gate to the Kirkaig falls

Assynt Sounds. A series of soundscape recordings made on a trip to this area of the northwest highlands whenever I remembered to record. Often taken on the spur of the moment, so quality is not guaranteed.
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The sea and nothing but the sea. Not a lot of rocks, just waves coming in and out at the most serene moment of my trip.

Assynt Sounds 6: Hidden corner of Achmelvich Beach

Assynt Sounds. A series of soundscape recordings made on a trip to this area of the northwest highlands whenever I remembered to record. Often taken on the spur of the moment, so quality is not guaranteed.
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I'm pretty sure that this recording is from the closest point I could comfortably get to these rocks, the furthest that can be seen from Achmelvich beach. Before taking this recording I had sat in this spot for a long time just appreciating being where I was and the audible intricacies of the way the water interacted with the different shapes and textures of rock. Unfortunately with tidal variation, some of those sounds changed by the time I began recording, but it is great anyway.

Assynt Sounds 7: Rocks on the Headland

Assynt Sounds. A series of soundscape recordings made on a trip to this area of the northwest highlands whenever I remembered to record. Often taken on the spur of the moment, so quality is not guaranteed.
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Walking back from the headland I crossed the whole of Achmelvich beachfront. A little different from the other sea ones, with the footsteps, children playing, and a sense of the angle at which the waves hit the beach, breaking from left to right (right to left in the picture),

Assynt Sounds 8: Achmelvich Beachfront Walk

A tense and quiet piece, Scatter was composed in September 2016, but finally saw its first proper performance at the New Sounds concert in February 2019, with Florence Price on Violin and Maria Palapanidou on Piano.

Scatter

These first two miniatures for music box, composed around May 2018, explore different approaches to rhythm on a crank arm music box, and  downward motions in musical patterns. In this piece I explored rule based composition, setting up patterns that would interact, sparking off fresh patterns that would then add to the interactions until the available roll ran out.

1. Patterns (Miniatures for Music Box)

These first two miniatures for music box, composed around May 2018, explore different approaches to rhythm on a crank arm music box, and downward motions in musical patterns. In this piece I created a number of evenly spaced sets of notes, each one line down from the last, and placed them in order, never repeating the same sequence on one set. The notes are evenly spaced, with rhythm coming from speed directions for the person turning the arm.

2. Stars (Miniatures for Music Box)

Contemporary composer from Scotland, currently undertaking PhD research. Influences range from minimalism to modernism to acousmatic music to progressive rock with plenty in between.

Simon Hellewell

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