Excellent piece....certainly left me wanting to hear more. Complexity and cohesion giving an inkling to the potential this young composer possesses.

Welsh Folk Song, Hiraeth. Performed by Only Men Aloud on their album Unplugged. 

Hiraeth

Here's a song I did for a music production project in uni. Thought I'd upload it here. Enjoy!

Keep Me Going

Free Download or name your price here - https://duski.bandcamp.com/releases

Duski - Simple Song

An exciting tonal perpetuum-mobile and fanfare for large orchestra!
Written as part of my 2018 MMus composition degree.

Petrichor: 'A pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.' - Oxford Online Dictionary

Please forgive the virtual balancing issues, particularly in the last section.

3(1.2.pic).3(1.2.ca).3(1.2.3/bcl).3(1.2.cbsn) | 4.3.3(1.2.btbn).1 | T | 3P | Hp | Pno/Cel | Str

Petrichor - 2018

This is the finale of my piece 'that which lies in the mist', premiered Wednesday 4th March 2020 as part of Composition: Wales 2020. Big thanks to the BBC NOW and the team for such an excellent performance! 

Orchestra - BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Conductor - B Tommy Andersson.

that which lies in the mist (extract)

An excerpt from my piece The Evening Strait - Concert Prelude performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at Composition: Wales on the 3rd-4th March, 2020 at Hoddinott Hall, Wales Millennium Centre.

Program note: The first version of Concert Prelude was written in 2017 with the objective of being an exciting but varied overture-style work. Using a simplistic and obvious musical building block, the motif heard at the very opening of Concert Prelude informs almost all the subsequent music heard in the piece. The fourths are used constantly, both as melody and harmony as the piece progresses. The opening ascending flourish is met by a bright and brilliant introductory passage before moving to a sombre and fluid texture. The strings harmonics pulse brightly above descending lines in the horns and double basses and each entrance of the woodwind melody moves the harmony forward before returning to the opening harmonies via a clarinet solo of descending fourths. Then the opening motif is extended with a zig-zagging run played by various sections of the orchestra in an energetic and agitated section. Nervous energy continues into a section of static repetition in the violas and timpani counterbalanced by expanding quartal chords in the brass which explode and disfigure. The heavily rhythmic section progresses but is subdued by previous harmonies which continue to expand upwards. The music breaks down into rhythmic fragments in the woodwind before blending into the exciting final coda. The subtitle “The Evening Strait” was added after completion as I felt the main sections were reminiscent of contrasting evenings in the busy city centre with the tranquillity of the star over the Menai Strait.

Score (excerpt starts at page 21): https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aig3KuLeC_ijhPoHeEyJx9RKOzrZbw?e=CUR86b

The Evening Strait - BBC NOW Excerpt

Purchase this piece: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/curtains-for-brass-band-and-narrator-digital-sheet-music/22535256

Curtains for Brass Band and Narrator (2020) by Matthew Nunes
Text by Jessica Mitford extracted from her 1963 essay "Behind the
Formaldehyde Curtain"

Composer's Notes:
Jessica Mitford’s incisive 1963 essay "Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain" is the inspiration for this piece. Mitford dissects the embalming industry while baring the ironies and inhumanities of its processes. First included in her book "The American Way of Death", we follow “Mr. Jones” from death to burial and experience all the
tools, techniques, and abuses in-between. It was required reading for me as a high school junior and a text that grows more haunting with each added birthday candle.

The piece follows “Mr. Jones” on his journey with narrated extracts from Mitford’s essay. The opening chords are constructed from the pitches D-flat, E-flat, A-flat, and another D-flat, following Igor Stravinsky’s final chord in "The Rite of Spring" (D-E-A-D). From here the material alternates between chromatically descending, as the corpse nears its final resting place, and ascending, while the embalmers fight to champion death.

- Matthew Nunes
Niceville, July 2020

that which lies in the mist (extract)

Thomas Whitcombe

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