GLOWROGUES
Manchester band soon to AWAKEN

Sam Healey // Alto
Aaron Diaz // Trumpet & FX
Mark Francis // Trombone
Dan Brew // Guitar
Ben Watte // Keys
Jamie Brewster // Bass
Jim Molyneux // Drums

The All Night Lights

Recordings were made at the park next to my flat on the 19th and 20th of August 2023. The title references the fact I was, at the time, getting ready to sell my flat and move somewhere new. 

Both the notated composition and the fixed media part were completed shortly after. The fixed media part features recordings of children (including a wonderfully curious girl who kept on playing with my recording equipment), me striking the top of a metal bin with my hands as if it were a drum, and a man playing basketball on his own. 

The notated piano part consists of 23 chords. The numbers associated with these chords (23, 9, 6 ,8) and the common pitch (G) are derived from my address, postcode, and the fact my flat is on the 6th floor of the building.

This is just a demo recording, and will eventually be replaced by a new piano performance, recorded professionally. If you would like to play it, feel free to contact me and I will send you the materials.

Goodbye Bins And Benches

BBC Commission, First Night Of The Proms 2015, BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo. World Premiere: July 17th 2015
I encountered Max Ernst's Dadaville (1924) at Tate Liverpool by chance and was immediately intrigued; it looked like a painting but is actually a sculpture of a seemingly impenetrable iron wall that is in fact made of a cork so fragile that it is kept behind glass for fear it might crumble if touched. Above the ‘wall’, we observe what may be blue sky and white clouds. The sculpture is rich in ambiguity.
Dadaville lasts about seven minutes and is scored for an orchestra that includes extensive percussion and a baritone saxophone. It begins with a muted violin melody that in various incarnations permeates the entire piece. An energetic section follows based around the notes D and A; notes which stubbornly pop up throughout irrespective of context and environment (and where else might the notes D and A live other than Dadaville?). A gritty, aggressive segment gravitating around D flat and A flat (D and A at Baroque pitch?) ensues. A genial woodwind/celesta bridge leads to a dreamlike statement of the opening melody (solo violin/cello then flute/horn) that in turn introduces the tuba’s infinitely variable 9-bar ground-bass-like figure (or groove if you prefer) which passes from instrument to instrument to the end of the piece (under the bonnet, the number 9 and its multiples have structural and symbolic significance –Dadaville [9 letters] is 180 bars long, for example). Whilst writing Dadaville, I often pondered what else (another D and A?) might live behind this iron-cork wall. The penultimate bar fleetingly hints...
Full and Study Score available from Cadenza Music from whom performance materials can be hired.  https://cadenza-music.com/index.php

Dadaville

Blood and Faeces (demo)

Orchestra: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Andrew Gourlay

Sirens - for Symphony Orchestra

Eraserhead (Unmastered)

Cameron

Premiere performance
Scottish Chamber Orchestra | Joseph Swensen (cond.)
Ayr Town Hall
22nd November 2017

This recording
Scottish Chamber Orchestra | Joseph Swensen (cond.)
Glasgow City Halls
24th November 2017

Harrold’s writing is precise and clean-textured, yet he imbues the work with a dazzling warmth and emotive density." Ken Walton, The Scotsman

"To the Light may turn out to be a very significant piece in spreading his reputation. Responding with discipline to the chamber orchestra challenge, he has produced a work that makes maximum use of the more limited instrumental palette..." Keith Bruce, The Herald

"The strong, angular central section seemed to lay bare something dark in the soul...Harrold’s piece was striking and memorable, and he’s definitely a voice that I’d like to hear again." Seen and Heard International

To the Light is, in its most basic of forms, a movement from darkness to light which surges through an arch-form structure. The music exists as one continuous movement, but can be divided into three distinct sections: a quiet, restrained opening within which a baleful, wistful solo cello wails above dark string chords; a potent, insistent middle where the brass vie for supremacy against the strings; and a return to the yearning material found in the opening, but only this time the music has in many ways been distilled, or damaged, by the energised middle section that preceded it. 

The descending trio of chords heard at the opening of To the Light underpin the entire body of harmonic material found within the piece. This harmonic sound-world, which infects the whole work, was created by utilising rotations and extensions of these chords. These various iterations also led to the construction of the melodic material, which is dominated by minor sixths and thirds. The energised middle section is essentially a collage of musical moments which are hung together by these chordal progressions and melodic ideas. These series of moments lead breathlessly to the climax of the piece: a cleansing arrival into Db minor which quickly dissipates. 

To the Light was commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with funding from the PRS for Music Foundation, Cruden Foundation, and RVW Trust. It is dedicated to my grandfather, Alexander Scott, who died in 2016.

TO THE LIGHT, for chamber orchestra | Scottish Chamber Orchestra / Joseph Swensen | 2017

Luke Jones plays Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy and Ravel

TOM HARROLD is an award-winning Scottish composer whose music has received worldwide performances by a multitude of performing groups and artists.
Described as "brazen...bold...confident" [the Guardian] and "packed with incessant energy" [the Scotsman], Tom's recent output includes DARKENED DREAMS (a Proms commission which was broadcast live simultaneously on BBC Radios 3 & 4), NIGHTFIRES, a BBC commission that is "...among the most exciting pieces by a Scottish composer in the last 25 years..."[the Herald], and RAZE, which opened the Last Night of the BBC Proms.

TO THE LIGHT, for chamber orchestra | Scottish Chamber Orchestra / Joseph Swensen | 2017

Tom Harrold

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