for Matt

Commissioned by Llandaff Cathedral School Consort, in memory of our dear friend, Matt Barnaville. 

Performed here by the Choir of Royal Holloway, George Nicholls (organ) and Rupert Gough (cond.)on 28 April 2021, at the Chapel of Royal Holloway University of London

open thou our lips

"A bat, a cormorant, and a bramble bush agreed to trade in business together. The bat's adventure was in ready money, that she took up at interest; the cormorant's in brass; and the bramble's was in cloth. 

They loaded their goods onto a ship and set sail. But a storm blew up, and ship and goods alike were lost to the bottom of the sea! The three sorry travellers made their way back to land. …and ever since:

the bat never stirs abroad till night, for fear of her creditors; the cormorant is still sauntering by the seashore, to see if he can find any of his brass cast up; and the bramble bush lays hold of all the clothes he can reach, in hope to light upon his own again."
   
   
Aetiologies - mythical or satirical explanations for the origin of everyday things - have long held an affectionate place in my mind, and one of the pleasures of studying folk culture is the opportunity to revisit favourite narrative forms from childhood with a fresh perspective. This story, taken from Aesop’s fables, has appeared in various oral traditions including at least one variant from rural North Wales which was my initial point of inspiration for writing this piece.

The music is gently modal in its harmonic construction, combining an Aeolian/Dorian E-minor harmonic space with a Lydian-inflected G scale. E-minor sections are associated with purely instrumental material offering musical ‘scene setting’, while the G-centred passages are reserved for narrative characterisations. Each of the three characters has their own distinct recurring motif which interweave with, and evolve into, the singer’s material as it moves between rhythmified spoken narration and more traditional pitched material. Across both modal spaces, quartal/quintal harmonies and melodic shapes appear as the structural impetus of the music, throughout which I have endeavoured to combine colourful impressionistic gestures with more playful dramatic cues.

Performed live by The Hermes Experiment, at the BFE/RMA Research Students' Conference, University of Plymouth.

© Copyright 2022

The Bat, the Cormorant & the Bramble Bush | The Hermes Experiment [live workshop recording] (2021)

Breathe. A meditation.

Performed by Michael Hearty.

Breathe

A setting of the traditional Yorkshire song, 'A Lyke Wake Dirge', sung to accompany the carrying of a body over a coffin path to its resting place.

Written for and sung by Juice Vocal Ensemble (Anna Snow, Sarah Dacey and Kerry Andrew).

This song was arranged to accompany a short story I wrote, 'The Coffin Path', which you can listen to exclusively as a B-side to my You Are Wolf song, Blue Men: https://youarewolf.bandcamp.com

A Lyke Wake Dirge (SSA)

Gwenan Gibbard, Patrick Rimes a Gwilym Bowen Rhys - Sesiwn fyw i raglen 'Sesiwn Fach', BBC Radio Cymru.

Y Saith Rhyfeddod

This challenging work consists employs several techniques to depict the creation of the world as described in Genesis I. These techniques include overtone singing, whispering and aleatoric clouds of sound. It was selected to represent South Africa at the opening of the BRICS Conference in Moscow in 2015.

Text:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good.


Genesis (Hofmeyr) - Cape Town Youth Choir, Leon Starker

https://soundiron.com/products/elysium-harp

Elysium Harp is a 47-string grand concert pedal harp virtual instrument library, fully compatible with the free Kontakt Player and Komplete Kontrol S-Series Keyboards by Native Instruments. We recorded this massive Lyon & Healy bronze concert harp in exquisite detail, with extended articulation choices, advanced controls, easy play-assist features and warm presence across the entire key range.

We've covered classic Finger Plucks with long sustains, deep round-robin and dynamic layering for each string. We also recorded Hard Fingernail plucks, Harmonics, Xylophonics, Bass Pedal Buzzes, plus a wide collection of natural Live Glisses in 19 scales and styles by harpist Jennifer Ellis. You'll find lots of custom ambiences, pads and unique FX presets created with the harp source to open up limitless sound design possibilities. You also have access to 3 stereo mic positions (sound board, rear ports & room) to freely mix and route, plus an advanced real-time gliss and arpeggiator sequencers, instant pedal presets for easy glissing and arpeggios, precise tone and presence shaping and a full FX rack for total creative freedom. Elysium Harp contains 12,147 samples and over 30GB of wav content. The library is compressed to 14.7 GB with NI's lossless .ncw audio format for greater resource efficiency. It works in Kontakt or Kontakt Player version 5.5.2 and later.

Dylan Jones - All At Once (Dressed) - Soundiron Elysium Harp

Recording made from live performances at St. George's, Bristol on 24/04/2018.

Performed by Anne Cartel

Psithurism (Revised)

Drifting, swirling, rising, falling, expanding, contracting, growing, living, dying. A recorded piece for the female voice.

University 

Embers

Recorded by Jerry Zhuo
Our memory is naturally fragmented. Imagination -- a metaphysical glue that puts memory together. Identity -- the memory of memory that lacks the suitable glue. 碎(sui), fragmented, broken, crushed...

Sui 碎

Boundary Oak
Eclogue for Piano

This was a real lockdown labour of love- in this weird world of 2020, I had a go at transcribing birdsong in the countryside around my late Grandparents' old house and turned it into a little piece. 
It was also a family project- I wrote the piece, my dad created the beautiful cover art and my mum is learning to play it herself (this is just a midi version for now). Check out their stuff here:

https://www.instagram.com/philhodkin/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/jeanniepiano/?hl=en

I hope you enjoy.

Boundary Oak

Composer of contemporary classical concert music, soundtracks for film and visual media, based in south Wales. Folk music enthusiast, pianist & cellist, lecturing composition at Cardiff University and the University of Gloucestershire. 

You'll find most of my discography over on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, or Bandcamp, but I occasionally post extra bits and pieces here too.

The Bat, the Cormorant & the Bramble Bush | The Hermes Experiment [live workshop recording] (2021)

Timothy Johnston

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