Songs

Chamber

The track that didn't make it onto the first MooV album, 'fold'. It features 'cellist Zoe Martlew.

A New Leaf

A little snippet of Michael Rosen and the Homemade Orchestra at the Queen Elisabeth Hall

Little Ticket

Song from my cycle 'On The Sheltering Bars' sung by Claron McFadden.
From the album 'Close' available on the Squeaky Kate Label.
www.squeakykate.co.uk


At 3am

'Flight' sung by Canticum. A movement from my cycle '...round the still earth' about winter's journey.
A setting of a poem by George Johnston.
The album 'In The Gloom Of Whiteness' is available on the  Squeaky Kate Label.
www.squeakykate.co.uk

Flight

'Snow Down' sung by Canticum. A movement from my cycle '...round the still earth' about winter's journey.
A setting of a poem by Edward Thomas.
The album 'In The Gloom Of Whiteness' is available on the  Squeaky Kate Label.
www.squeakykate.co.uk

Snow Down

Song from the last MooV album 'here'
Available on Squeaky Kate Records  www.squeakykate.co.uk


A Pier

From my album A Green and Yellow Melancholy, performed by new music group Kokoro.

Airs And Graces

When that hurt in your heart has gone
I'll still be your friend
Right to the end of our river and further still
This hurt it will mend

SCORE AVAILABLE FROM COMPOSERS EDITION
https://composersedition.com/colin-riley-right-to-the-end-of-our-river-cello-and-harp-version

Right To The End Of Our River

Purl

Performed by Matthew Schellhorn at York Late Music

SCORE AVAILABLE FROM COMPOSERS EDITION
https://composersedition.com/colin-riley-as-the-tender-twilight-covers

As The Tender Twilight Covers

The second movement from 'Hanging In The Balance' for pianos and resonating parts of a drum kit. The first piece of my research project 'Made 2 Resonate' which explores musical compositions for a single instrument and the sounds induced from everyday objects.

SCORE AVAILABLE HERE
https://composersedition.com/colin-riley-hanging-in-the-balance

Break Tackle And Bowl

No Longer A Flower

In Place

Water Over Stone (2018 re-mix)

Deep Forest
(words from the poem ‘Lights Out’ by Edward Thomas)

Described by Ted Hughes as ’the father of us all’, Thomas came late to poetry and it was only through his close friendship with Robert Frost that he finally turned to the form, writing all his work in just a few years before his death in the First World War. 
He was a regular walker of his surroundings on the South Downs, which were the focus for much of his poetry, and this sense of place, connecting past and present is central to his work. Along with his obsession about roads and tracks, the traditional forest associations of enchantment, mystery and the unknown are all embedded in this poem. It is a meditation on the inevitability of sleep, welcome rest and ultimately death as a place of solace. 


From the album 'In Place'

Voice – Melanie Pappenheim
Piano/Keyboards – Kate Halsall
Viola – Nic Pendlebury
Percussion –  Stephen Hiscock
Bass Guitar – Ruth Goller

www.inplaceproject.co.uk

Deep Forest

Jaan Jalebi 
(words by Daljit Nagra)

Jalebi is a sweet, popular in countries of South Asia, West Asia, North Africa, and East Africa. It is made by deep-frying maida flour batter in pretzel shapes, which are then soaked in sugar syrup. In the centre of London’s Southall district, at 93 The Broadway is ‘Jalebi Junction’, famous for its fresh jalebis. 

Through a series of ever-more colourful sections the song takes with it increasing sights, sounds, smells and tastes. The song plays with the sharing of ideas. The voice of the poet and the singer evoking half-sung melodies, the interrupting Sanyo radio transmissions, the Bhangra rhythms and the eventual unleashed vocalise at the end. 


From the album 'In Place'

Voice – Melanie Pappenheim
Piano/Keyboards – Kate Halsall
Viola – Nic Pendlebury
Percussion –  Stephen Hiscock
Bass Guitar – Ruth Goller

www.inplaceproject.co.uk

Jaan Jalebi

Half Written Love Letter 
(words by Selina Nwulu)

Half Written Love Letter speaks of the idea of knowing a place intimately, even if it doesn't necessarily want to know you back. It hangs between hurt and nostalgia, (for both Selina’s Nigerian and Yorkshire heritages), and is a love song, split between the two voices of the author and the singer. The author’s recorded voice sounds ‘long-distance’ as if through the radio or a conch shell. The live singer weaves a range of foreground lines; spoken, choric, and vocalise. The song proceeds through a series of verses over a ground bass, the percussion driving it forward in a series sections like the pages of a letter. 

From the album 'In Place'

Voice – Melanie Pappenheim
Piano/Keyboards – Kate Halsall
Viola – Nic Pendlebury
Percussion –  Stephen Hiscock
Bass Guitar – Ruth Goller

www.inplaceproject.co.uk

Half Written Love Letter

Weather Words
 (words by Robert Macfarlane) 
The British are famously obsessed by the weather. We have a huge range of words to describe weather, the time of day, and the seasons. Clusters of regional words, many now fallen out of use, have been formed here into tiny poems tracing the arc of a day in 7 sections: Dawn, Mist, Wind, Ice, Sun, Rain, Dusk. The unfamiliar words, sounding as they do like strange language, provide a kind of spell and requite close attention. 

From the album 'In Place'

Voice – Melanie Pappenheim
Piano/Keyboards – Kate Halsall
Viola – Nic Pendlebury
Percussion –  Stephen Hiscock
Bass Guitar – Ruth Goller

www.inplaceproject.co.uk

Weather Words

Roads Shining Like River Up Hill After Rain
5 ghost shards for choir and cello

Music – Colin Riley
Libretto compiled by Robert Macfarlane
Based on fragments of poetry by Edward Thomas

Performed by Gabriella Swallow and Pegasus conducted by Matthew Altham
Recorded in St Mary's Church, Twickenham, London (2019)
Recording and editing by Tim Hand
Editing and mastering by Roger King

Link to more info (including the full libretto) http://www.colinriley.co.uk/projects#/roads-shining/

Edward Thomas was killed on 9th April (Easter Monday) 1917 in Arras on the western front when a German shell passed so close to his body that the air was sucked out of his lungs and he died without a mark on him. The contents of his pockets, sent home to his wife, contained his diary, a photograph, and a letter on the back of which were scribbled some fragments of incomplete poetry including the lines:
‘Where any turn may lead to Heaven
Or any corner may hide Hell
Roads shining like river up hill after rain.’

Described by Ted Hughes as ’the father of us all’, Thomas came late to poetry and it was only through his close friendship with Robert Frost that he finally turned to the form, writing all his work in just a few years before his death in the First World War. He was a regular walker of his surroundings on the South Downs, which are the focus for much of his poetry, and this sense of place, connecting past and present is central to his work. The act of walking helped him to shake off some of the depression and self-doubt which plagued him all his life. 

The solo ‘cello acts as both an embodiment of Thomas himself as well as providing the sense of travelling through a landscape with the rhythmical suggestions of walking. It plots a melodic pathway allowing the text fragments to act as viewpoints or reflections on the journey. Rather like the evolving perspectives of a walk, where one landscape merges into the next in an ever-changing perspective, so the fleeting fragments of the incomplete poetry, like unfinished thoughts, mingle together to form suggestions rather than anything complete. 

The text has been arranged by Robert Macfarlane drawing on lines, images and fragments from Thomas's poetry (including the unfinished verse found in his pocket) as a metaphorical journey from his home village of Steep to the Western Front. Each section closes with a stanza from the poem ‘Roads’ which threads through the whole piece. Thomas is the ghost and spirit-guide to Macfarlane's bestselling 2012 book about paths, walking and memory, The Old Ways, and Macfarlane wrote the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Thomas's Selected Poems and Prose.

The piece is also imbued with a flavor of that Edwardian melancholy which pervades Elgar’s Cello Concerto of a few years later, as well as an intimacy, which couples the wonder of nature with a dark yearning. The choice of ‘cello obbligato is party suggested by this, and partly because of the highly personal (and song-like) nature of the instrument.

The creation of this new work has been supported by the Hinrichsen Foundation, to whom I am most grateful.

Roads Shining Like River Up Hill After Rain

Demo song. 
Voice - Melanie Pappenheim.
Text - Sam Guglani
Performed at Medicine Unboxed 2018.

Heart

From the piece 'Landscapes With Birds' 
Performed by Tim Whitehead (tenor saxophone) and the Strings of the Royal College of Music conducted by Mark Messenger.
Music available from Composers Edition https://composersedition.com/composers/colinriley

The Heart's Exploding Sun

Purl - BBC Radio Scotland Future Classic

Remix of 'Weather Words' from the album In Place by Reuben Kyriakides

Weather Words [Levi Draper Winter Lullaby Reconstruction]

Clarinet - Tom Lessels
Piano - Kate Halsall

From the album 'Shenanigans' NMC (2017)

Shenanigans

A Cool Carfuffle

The last performance of MooV - a few years ago.
Lis Nygard - voice / Colin Riley - piano-electronics / Natalie Rosario - 'cello
Hoping to return on stage soon.

Interference (live @ Pheasantry)

Live concert recording by Ensemble Bash (Jan 2020)

Rock Paper Scissors

A trailer for my 5-movement piece for orchestra.
The sounds are all simulated.

Earth Voices (extracts)

Extracts from premiere in Manchester Cathedral, June 2017
Guy Johnston and Gabriella Swallow - cellos
With the Manchester Camerata conducted by Gabor Tackas-Nagy

Warp And Weft (Extracts)

Words - John Donne
Singers -Melanie Pappenheim and Jeremy Avis
Piano - Colin Riley

Based on the poem 'Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day'

The Years Midnight

Colin Riley, composer

I hope you enjoy the music.

www.colinriley.co.uk

'Wry, fond, understated and slightly bonkers' The Guardian
‘Beautiful, clever and direct’ Classical Music Magazine
‘Tantalising new territory’  The Times  
‘Has the hairs rising on the back of your neck.’ Birmingham Post
‘Something extraordinarily strange and beautiful.’ BBC Radio 1
‘Riley is that rarest of birds, a genuine original.’ London Jazz Blog
‘There are many intelligent musicians whose work defies casual categorization. Riley is one such musician.’ Classical Source

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