Assignment 2 Piece for Clarinet in Whole tone scale

Mysterium et Angore in Vita

In 2024, I travelled to France to study Bouffon (a type of clowning) at École Philippe Gaulier. I am a musician/composer and did this to improve my stage presence, but I learned much more than I had bargained for...

The course was incredibly intense and all-consuming. However, I did find time to record a lot of 'Bouffon' sounds - laughter, giggles, swearing, shouting, and other strange noises. A central part of Bouffon practice is to mock and parody people you hate. Hence, towards the end of the course, I made a short theatre piece about frogs based upon an infamous Alex Jones quotation 'I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs gay!' To support me, all of my classmates pretended to be frogs engaging in... er.... intimate acts. The theatre piece was a glorious failure, but inspired Frog Buffoons.

Frog Buffoons features an electronics part that combines the Bouffon audio with frog sounds in addition to the noises produced by a French frog children's toy. It is a very strange piece, but the Bouffon course was a very strange experience.

The fixed electronics part is improvisatory in nature, in that the source sounds are recordings of me and my classmates improvising. However, the way in which I used these recordings was also improvisatory; once I had placed a recording into my Digital Audio Workstation, I did not allow myself to delete it. I had to use it and make it work via processing and recontextualising. Finally, the live melodica part (which I play myself) is entirely improvised.

Frog Buffoons

The Leeds Cross stands in Leeds Minster. A sign in the minster itself describes the cross: 

“The pieces making up the cross were found built into the medieval structure during demolition of the church in 1838. The cross would originally have stood outside the church, together with other crosses, and may have served as a grave marker. It dates to the tenth century A.D., and is carved in the Anglian style. The wheel-head originally belonged to another cross, although the shaft would have had a similar top. All the crosses from Leeds appear to have been produced in one workshop, and also have artistic links with other pieces from Wharfedale, such as the Collingham, Otley and Ilkley crosses. 

The upper tiers show several probably Christian figures, the angel and patron possibly copied from Irish manuscript art. At the bottom of the main faces are figures from Germanic mythology. One panel shows Weland the Smith, who was captured by Nithad, hamstrung, and forced to work as a smith. In revenge Weland murdered Nithad’s two sons and made their skulls into cups which he presented to their father, and then made Nithad’s daughter, Beaduhild, pregnant. Weland escaped by means of a flying machine, which is here shown strapped around him. He is shown surrounded by the tools of his trade and reaching up to seize a female figure, possibly Beaduhild or a Valkyrie, by the hair and skirt. The juxtaposition of Christian and pagan iconography indicates the mixed nature of tenth-century society, although the figure of Weland was sometimes employed to represent Elijah who ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot.”

I recorded violinist and composer, James Gerrard, playing On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at. This Yorkshire folk song is based upon the hymn Cranbook; just like the Leeds Cross, it is simultaneously Christian and non-Christian. I also recorded James reading a sign describing the various sections of the cross, and combined these with recordings of bells, birds, and footsteps, all captured either in the minster itself or directly outside. I have attempted to replicate the cross’s beautiful, confusing, fragmentary character, and was inspired by its iconography, both Christian and non-Christian.

Originally From Another Cross

Corineus, in medieval British legend, was a prodigious warrior, a fighter of giants, and the eponymous founder of Cornwall. The first of the legendary rulers of Cornwall, he is described as a character of strength and power. It is on the medieval ruler that this work, 'Corineus', is based, presented in three contrasting sections.

'Corineus' was premiered by the Cory Band at the RNCM Festival of Brass on 28th January 2018, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 31st January 2018.

Corineus | Third Section Test-Piece (Cory Band)

From the album

 Pattern & Flow: Versatile Minimalism

Animated yet flowing classical minimalism, featuring string quintet, marimba, flute and clarinet

https://www.emipm.com/en/browse/labels/CHALK/20

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Lynne Plowman: Cries Like Silence (Extract)

five images
for Ensemble Dal Niente
World Premiere, 7.11.2020, DePaul University

i. 0:00
ii. 1:15
iii. 2:38
iv. 3:38
v. 7:57

Ensemble Dal Niente
Katie Schoepflin Jimoh - clarinets
Ben Melsky - harp
Kyle Flens - percussion
Theo Ramsey - violin, viola
Hannah A Barnes - conductor

five images (2020) is a set of compact canonic miniatures. Double, crab, prolation, and inversion canons are employed across the work to create a large-scale arch form that engages the quartet in a variety of different ways. While the canons are rigorous in their execution, they are not all intended to be heard as such, with variance in the timbre, register, and temporality of the material affecting the perceptibility and autonomy of the canonic voices. The odd-numbered movements (i, iii, v) use the full ensemble, with iii acting as the axis and breaking point in the large-scale structure. Movements ii and iv, both crab canons, employ duos different than those used in the double canons of the outer movements, and occupy a noisier and more distant landscape. Each pair of movement across this axis (v with i, and iv with ii) are created as derivations from their counterparts, as if an image is reflected through a broken mirror to create a simulacrum of its pair. However, it is impossible to determine which way the axis imposes its changes, and thus which image is the original and which is the reflection.
This work was created as a canonic sketchbook for my large ensemble work, Triskelion, for DePaul University’s Ensemble 20+, and directly confronts the issues presented by working both with miniature forms and composing with canons in the hopes of using an old technique to make something new.
five images was composed for Ensemble Dal Niente and premiered to an empty hall on July 11, 2020.
— HAB

five images (2020, world premiere)

assignment 4 oboe and vibes.m4a

A composer of Brass Band, Concert Band, choir and orch. Still studying with OCA and developing interests. 

Graphic score exercise: Wallace and Gromit

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