Moj e Bukura Moré (My Beautiful Morea)  - FEMALE CHOIR

This performance was by the fellows of the Tanglewood Music Centre 1996

L'ARIA DISTANTE for Oboe & Chamber Ensemble

SOLILOQUY II for CELLO

Winning work of the  International Competition for Lutoslawski's 100th Birthday, chosen from 160 compositions submitted anonymously from 37 countries. It received its World Premiere at the final concert of 2013 Warsaw Autumn Festival, performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic, conducted by Rafal Janiak.https://www.musicroom.com/product/MUSM570364633/Thomas%20Simaku%20Concerto%20For%20Orchestra.aspx

CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA - Winning work of the Lutoslawski Prize 2013

WORLD PREMIERE - ISCM World Music Days 2000 in Luxembourg, performed by Vania Lecuit
    'A piece of unaccompanied violin writing which brings out the instrument's genius for passionate expression, fully realised in the young Luxembourg violinist Vania Lecuit's riveting interpretation.'
Peter Graham Woolf - Seen & Heard, London - review of the ISCM Festival, Luxembourg 2000

SOLILOQUY I - Peter Sheppard Skaerved, Violin

Thomas Simaku 
L’image oubliée d’après Debussy 
Commissioned by the York Late Music Series 2018 to mark Debussy's centenary - James Willshire - Piano
World Premiere Recording : 1 September 2018 

Composed in the spring of 2018, this piece was written in response to a commission by the York Late Music Concert Series to commemorate the centenary of Debussy's death. We were asked to choose a piece by Debussy, quote it for a minute or so, and continue on our own style – easier said than done. But I was indeed intrigued by the idea and was anxiously curious to find out where this imaginary journey would take me. I chose a Debussy piece, which is not among his best-known piano works; in fact, it could be said that it's a forgotten one!
Composed in the winter of 1894, at a time when the composer was working on his, arguably the most famous work, Prélude a l'Après-midi d'un faune (1892-94), this is the first of a set of three piano pieces called Images (oubliées), which was not published until well after Debussy's death.  In the preface to the 1977 published edition, Arthur Hoérée writes:  ‘Always concerned with perfection, severely self-critical, Debussy had not thought it opportune to have the manuscript published.'
That said, I was immediately 'hooked' by the opening melody of the first piece Lent (mélancolique et doux), an ‘image truly ''oubliée''', as Hoérée puts it, and was amazed to discover a reservoir of harmonic colours and rhythmic suppleness hidden in the 'dream-like' atmosphere of this impeccably concise and memorable little tune. Debussy has ingeniously based this melodic gem in the tonality of F-sharp minor, and has complemented it with the limpid arpeggios of the D-sharp minor, whilst including a whole-tone segment between them. 
Emphatically displayed right at the beginning of the Image, the melody and the arpeggio (which I would describe respectively as ‘vocal’ and ‘instrumental’ elements of the composition) are to become the driving force behind the proliferation of the entire harmonic vocabulary of the piece. My idea for the continuation of this compositional journey was to bring this ‘imagery’ to the doorstep of our time. 
To give but one example, arpeggios have become an essential part of the sound-world of this new imagery, in the sense that they are projected as ‘vertical lines’ and ‘melodic gestures’, in both directions (up and down), and are ubiquitously present throughout the piece; most importantly, they lend themselves to constant transformations, and are expanded in pitch content and tone colours. They feature the mellow middle register with clusters where invariably diatonic and chromatic segments co-exist, and highlight the bright colours of the higher register, focusing on specific intervals such as the perfect fifth – the first interval of Debussy’s opening melody. 
To sum this all up, I would quote none other than Debussy himself, who described these images as ‘conversations’ between the piano and one’s self’! 
©TS

L’image oubliée d’après Debussy

Commissioned by Pharos International Festival, this work is written for, and dedicated to, members of Klangforum Wien.  
World Premiere : 12 October 2018

For more information about the work, please follow the link
https://www.klangforum.at/blog-detail-en/simaku-klang-inventions-en.html

KLANG INVENTIONS  - WORLD PREMIERE  -  KLANGFORUM WIEN

https://www.musicroom.com/thomas-simaku-the-scream-string-orchestra-musm570368006?returnurl=%2fsearch%3fq%3dthomas%2bsimaku%2bthe%2bscream

The iconic painting by Edvard Munch was the main impulse for writing this piece - hence the title. Its 'silent scream', whose echo spans (and can be heard) well beyond the painting's time and frame, struck a chord with me for its resonance with our modern times. In no way programmatic, the music here focuses on the concentrated form of expression that emanates from the space, the colours, and the gritty intensity of the 'deafening silence' in Munch's painting.
Stemming from a single line - hence, the vocal quality embedded in the overall melodic expression of the strings is at the centre here -
there are a variety of 'screamingly-based' sonorities, 'vocal' or otherwise, throughout the piece.
They cover a wide spectrum of dynamics, and range from very soft and delicate to furiously loud and tumultuous textures, as if reaching our modern times from the remoteness of time itself.
These linear manifestations occupy the whole registral gamut of the strings in a symphony orchestra, and are presented in a variety of formats ranging from static (sometimes tenaciously motionless) horizontal lines, through various heterophonic bundles progressively moving at their own pace, to different 'diagonal' sliding lines (microtonally inflected or otherwise)that overlap with, and echo, one another.
The piece is dedicated to Robin Boyle, whose unwavering support has meant a lot to me. ©TS
The world premiere was given by the BBC Concert Orchestra
conducted by Stephen Cleobury in the chapel of King's College, Cambridge on 17 November 2017.

'THE SCREAM' for STRING ORCHESTRA - Based on the iconic painting by Munch -BBC Radio 3 Broadcast

ENgREnage for violin and piano (2014–15)
for Peter Sheppard Skærved and Roderick Chadwick

ENgREnage could well be the short name for this piece; with the music firmly centred on D, the full name is certainly Engrenage en Ré. There are several meanings embedded in this French word, but two of them seem to have a remarkably close link with the music here: the first meaning is technical, and the exact translation for it is gear (there is certainly a ‘gear’ here, which moves up and down and serves as the catalyst for the proliferation of movement and the kinetic energy that goes with it). The second meaning is more abstract, and there are several words associated with it, such as succession, suite, spiral, chain of events, etc. All these words/terms have their own ‘associations’ (metaphorical or otherwise), and each of them, one way or another, separately or in combination, seem to have something to say in what goes on in this piece!

Engrenage is a mechanical system consisting (composed) of two toothed wheels (Ds!) that generate movement by rotating against each other. The music does indeed begin with two Ds in unison—not surprisingly, double stops will feature prominently throughout the work—and it is this ‘friction’ between them (these two layers, that is) which right from the start seems to set the music in motion and prepares the ground for an overall contrapuntal engagement consisting of several layers. From the structural viewpoint, each section (succession) in this chain of events is well identified, thus giving shape to the flux of textural activity invariably characterised by virtuosic display. But an idiosyncratic expression, at times ostentatiously static, but otherwise purely melodic, albeit microtonally inflected, is very much part of the textural canvas, and makes its presence felt in the overall architectural design; with its elegant ‘vocal’ quality it certainly stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the texture. These various degrees of intensity throughout the music are well supported by a wide spectrum of dynamics, often in their extremes, and it is this dialectic quality of opposites (in both technical and expressive terms) that seems to be the main driving force behind the character of the piece as a whole.

While both instruments pursue their own individual path, they are interconnected at various levels. Here, the ‘open space’ quality of the perfect fifth has become central to the piano part, not just at the beginning of the piece where the piano is trying to ‘imitate’ the violin with inside pizzicati based on fifths, but also throughout the work. 
The music ends on a high note (harmonic), whose ethereal quality, determined by both colour and location, is in sharp contrast to the earthly D4, hence ENgREnage!

ENgREnage for Violin & Piano

'The most memorable moment of the evening, however, came at the climax of Thomas Simaku’s La Leggiadra Luna (The Beautiful Moon), in which a thundering eight-note chord reverberated around the St Nicholas’ rafters for what felt like an eternity.’
https://www.york.ac.uk/music/news-and-events/news/2019/2019-world-music-days/

The piece was selected by the International Jury and represented the UK at the ISCM - WORLD MUSIC DAYS 2019, sung by the Grammy award-winning ensemble Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir - St Nicholas Cathedral, Tallinn, 4 May 2019 www.worldmusicdays2019.ee/en/event/blossomings/

WORLD PREMIERE was given by the University of York 24 Vocal Ensemble - Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, York, 30 May 2018 https://www.uymp.co.uk/composers/thomas-simaku/works/la-leggiadra-luna

La leggiadra luna
This composition is a setting of a poem by Sappho translated from ancient Greek into modern Italian by the Nobel prize-winning Sicilian Poet Salvatore Quasimodo.
The music begins with a song-like expression introduced at a slow pace, as if emerging from the remoteness of time itself. It is clearly based on the musical utterance of the 'white modality', but these modal segments are constantly surrounded by chromatic inflections throughout the work.

Each section of the choir pursues its own path, but during a compositional process of ‘zooming in and out’, as it were, their individual qualities are highlighted. It is as if the initial sound object - which to begin with was far away- is brought nearer to us, in time and space.

A variety of short segments, predominantly modal, but stemming from different chromatic ‘locations’, are often superimposed. The task of filtering out this 'amorphous' texture and giving its constituent elements - be they melodic or harmonic, or a combination of both - a renewed identity, becomes an essential compositional aim, through which the process of crystallization occurs. The main strategy of the piece is thus exploring the interrelationship between these two sound-worlds (modal and chromatic) and their temporal qualities (ancient and modern), musical or otherwise.
The piece is dedicated to Robin Boyle on his 80th Birthday!
TS

La leggiadra luna for mixed choir a cappella

Soliloquy VII for Clarinet in B-flat with resonanat piano
Written for and dedicated to Jérôme Comte - Soloist of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Paris.

As the title suggests, this is the seventh piece of Soliloquy Cycle – a series of works for solo instruments I have been engaged with for a number of years now – after the première of Soliloquy I for Violin at the 2000 ISCM Festival, the idea of composing a series of solo works materialized itself. The aim of the whole cycle is to create different characters within the same protagonist who narrates in different languages, as it were, whilst each instrument makes considerable use of its own musical ‘dialect’. Thus, each time, the initial idea operates on a different instrumental canvas and is elaborated according to the expressive qualities and technical potentiality of each instrument. The cycle so far consists of nine self-contained works – the latest is for Trumpet, commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Franco-British Foundation for Contemporary Music - Diaphonique. 

In this particular piece, the textural dynamism and the linear contours based on modal elements constantly ‘surrounded’ by chromatic inflections are at the heart of the musical discourse. The idiosyncratic quality of the work is to be found in the rich and powerful (but also delicate) sonorities of the instrument, the high degree of virtuosity, and the interaction with the piano resonance which serves as a ‘megaphone’ amplifying the idiosyncrasy of the harmonic palette of the piece. The ‘vocal’ qualities of the Clarinet range from the most delicate expression to furiously wild passages invariably making use of techniques such as flutter tongue, glissandi, bisbigliandi, trills, tremolandi, and ‘part-writing’. In sharp contrast, the ‘instrumental accompaniment’ focuses on virtuosity, displaying an elaborate contrapuntal engagement, whilst percussive elements such as slap-tongues become an essential part of the textural format. The final section is a clear example of this approach, where the ‘beats’ of the slap tongue function as ‘accompaniment’ to the emulation of ‘throat–singing’ of the tremolandi.  

Soliloquy VII was completed during my residency at The Dora Maar House in Ménerbes, Provence, supported by The Brown Foundation in Houston, USA, in September 2019. The work is included in a new portrait CD to be released by NMC in 2023.  

© TS

Soliloquy VII  for Clarinet in B-flat with resonant piano(excerpt)

Catena I for solo piano (2019)
World premiere: JOSEPH HOUSTON
Moderne Muziek Nijmegen Festival, The Netherlands, 
24 November 2019; Included in Simaku's CD 'con-ri-sonanza' on BIS Records 2020

As the Latin title itself suggests, Catena is a chain of musical events linked by a network of relationships at various levels, musical or otherwise, such as the slow ‘procession’ of repeated notes right at the beginning of the piece, and the ‘chain- like’ sonorities further on. The work as a whole can be seen and heard as a con- catenation of five contrasting movements played without a break. Highly contra- puntal in texture, it explores in detail the expressive and virtuosic potentiality of the piano – an ideal instrumental canvas for ‘spiralling’ the sounds in a variety of ways, and covering a wide spectrum of colours, dynamics and textures. Whilst each movement follows its own path, beginning with the tenaciously static quality of the first, through cascades and glissandi ferociously sweeping across the keyboard in the middle movements, this whole sonic spiral culminates with the total dis- integration of the chains in the final movement.

CATENA I - for solo piano (2019)- 5th mov. (excerpt)

con-ri-sonanza  for piano & string quartet(2018)
Joseph Houston & Quatuor Diotima
World Premiere: 24 November 2019 - Moderne Muziek Nijmegen Festival, The Netherlands
Included in Simaku's CD 'con-ri-sonanza' on BIS Records  - released on 6 November 2020.

This piece is dedicated to the memory of Bill Colleran. A grand seigneur in the music-publishing world, Bill was an extraordinary man, with a strong character and generously helpful to others. The friendship and encouragement I received from him, even in his last days, meant so much to me! Four notes derived from his name are at the heart of the music here. This chordal structure is constantly ‘sur- rounded’ by and presented in a variety of relationships with different tonal idioms (black and white, ancient and modern) that co-exist within the overall chromatic spectrum. Presented in a variety of colours and dynamics, on the keyboard as well as inside the piano, these notes play a crucial role in articulating the whole formal structure of the work. Specific pitches also serve as a foundation tones upon which the natural harmonics freely cascade; but like the pillars of a sonic edifice, these four notes resonate throughout the piece, hence the title.

CON-RI-SONANZA for piano & string quartet

"The elegance of Ligeti and the gritty intensity of Kurtág, a fascinating combination. I get the sense of pure music in a serious vein, its composer driven only by an internal need to express himself." Fanfare Magazine USA.

Multi award–winning composer Thomas Simaku (b.1958) gained a PhD in Composition from University of York (1996) where he studied with David Blake. Simaku was the Leonard Bernstein Fellow in Composition at Tanglewood Music Centre, USA (1996) studying with Bernard Rands, and a fellow at the Composers’ Workshop, California State University (1998), with Brian Ferneyhough.

Simaku's music has been reaching audiences across Europe, the USA and further afield for more than two decades, and it has been awarded a host of accolades for its expressive qualities and its unique blend of intensity and modernism. His works have been selected by international juries in no less than nine editions of ISCM World Music Days; other international festivals where his music has been performed include Huddersfield, Tanglewood, Miami, Zagreb-Biennale, Weimar, Munich, Rome, Viitassari (Finland), Alea III Boston, Beijing, Innsbruck (Austria), Warsaw Autumn, etc. Performed by renowned soloists, ensembles and orchestras, his music has been broadcast worldwide, including radio stations such as BBC Radio 3, SWR2, MDR, Deutschlandfunk (Cologne), Amsterdam Radio 4, ORF (Austria), Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), RNE (Spain), RTP (Portugal), etc. His CD, released on Naxos 21st Century Classics series in 2008 received much critical acclaim; it reached the best of year list in the USA.

Prestigious awards include the coveted Lionel Robbins Memorial Scholarship in 1993, First Prize of the 2004 Serocki International Competition, a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, and a three-year fellowship from Arts & Humanities Research Council in London. In 2009 Simaku received a British Composer Award from BASCA for his Soliloquy V - Flauto Acerbo, which the judging panel described as ‘visionary and entirely original’. With this work he represented the UK at the 2012 ISCM Festival in Belgium.

In 2013 Simaku won the first prize of the International Competition for Lutosławski’s 100th Birthday with Concerto for Orchestra, chosen from 160 compositions submitted anonymously from 37 countries. Thomas Simaku is a Professor of Composition at the University of York.

Thomas Simaku

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