Composers' Studio was a pathway that gave six early-career composers - Eluned Davies, Jake Thorpe, Joseph Graydon, Luciano Williamson, Niamh O'Donnell & Tayla-Leigh Payne - the opportunity and support to write a 5-minute piece for conducted ensemble of 12 players.

Stiwdio Cyfansoddwyr / Composers' Studio

Grace Williams Flute Sonatina

Flute: Sarah Newbold
Piano: Zoe Smith

Recorded and produced at Tŷ Cerdd Studios by James Clarke

Sonatina for Flute & Piano - Grace Williams

A playlist of the new Tŷ Cerdd commissions for St David's Hall's Nightmusic series.

Tŷ Cerdd @ nightmusic

Two pieces came about during the COVID lockdowns – Mynyddoedd, and Roses – looking with an open mind towards a better time. While both songs are reflections and talk about escapism, they are very different pieces. With the aid of Tŷ Cerdd and the Mavron Quartet, I was able to add layers of nuance and joy to the pieces through exploring strings and their functions alongside my working style.

Mynyddoedd was composed originally using vocal harmony, the quartet brings such a vast timeless quality that is very reflective of the 'mountains' the piece is about. The lyrics were poetically translated by Gareth Sion and Gorwel Roberts.

Roses explores how great the past was, looking back, and the excitement of the possibility to return to how things were, through the story of youth and blind hope. I feel, especially now, everyone is lacking a bit of that in our lives.

Roses - Hannah Paloma

I usually create situation and site specific sound pieces, intended to enhance how we experience the world around us. For the past few years I have been working mostly within sound art, but through the CODI DIY project I began to explore composition and creating music for performance.

This piece, Afternoon is an example of just that. It was composed as part of a longer soundscape comprised of field recordings, ambient sound, and compositions relating to and inspired by different times of day. As the name suggests, Afternoon was inspired by the slower pace of early afternoon drifting into the end of the day, heralded by a choral section. In this rendition of the piece, field recordings are mixed into composition to ground it in the natural world. The piece was composed for string quartet, performed by the Mavron Quartet and produced by James Clarke.

Part of our CoDa 2021 online festival : www.tycerdd.org/coda-2021

Afternoon - Heledd Evans

Hyperion is an original song inspired by a poem by Romantic poet John Keats, called The Fall Of Hyperion: A Dream. It explores themes of fragility and resilience, and how human beings respond to suffering and change. As part of the CoDI DIY project, I had the opportunity to work with composer Pwyll ap Sion, who created a beautiful string quartet arrangement, to support my guitar and vocal parts. Together, we wanted to make a dynamic and richly-arranged track, which still feels delicate and gives space to the lyrics and voice. Hyperion is recorded by James Clarke, and strings are performed by the Mavron Quartet.

Part of our CoDa 2021 online festival : https://www.tycerdd.org/coda-2021

Hyperion - Cara Ludlow (sample)

This is one of a set of three compositions which are named after places that I love near my home village of Ffestiniog in North Wales. 'Ceunant Cynfal' and 'Rhosydd' are String Quartets played by The Mavron Quartet and 'Dros Y Moelwyn' is an orchestral piece using samples recorded on Logic Pro X.

Cwm Cynfal is a deep ravine through which Afon Cynfal flows. It is mentioned in the Mabinogion and was a favourite haunt of mine growing up. It has amazing waterfalls and a huge rock in the middle of the river where it is said that a 16th Century wizard Huw Llwyd used to preach. Rhosydd is the name of an abandoned Quarry high up above Cwmorthin on Y Moelwyn, the mountain range north of Blaenau Ffestiniog. Dros Y Moelwyn references a walk across Y Moelwyn to Croesor on the other side.

Here is the first of the set, Ceunant Cynfal.

Part of our CoDa 2021 online festival : www.tycerdd.org/coda-2021

Ceunant Cynfal - Kevs Ford

Rich Thair - Panteg

Sketch of Nature - Jo Thomas

The work is based on the four sections of the walled garden at the original Grange house (which is within the hospital grounds): water revelations; rockwall; poly plastic; blossom, along with poetry from Elizabeth Mitchell who lived in the old house, and memories of those who volunteer in the garden. I engaged with the volunteers through workshops to reflect on spaces around them, then recorded aspects of the sound and sketched images of our environment.

Cynefin - music from the Grange

Sketch of Nature

1. Sketch Of Nature – Jo Thomas

Dealt a Hand by Niamh O’Donnell (Tŷ Cerdd commission)
Premiered at NightMusic, St David's Hall, 5 April 2022
Performed by Anne Denholm (harp), Héloïse Werner (soprano)
Recorded in Tŷ Cerdd studios, engineered and produced by Matt Collins

Niamh O'Donnell - Dealt A Hand (Anne Denholm, Héloïse Werner)

The Grasshoppers by Ethnie Foulkes (Tŷ Cerdd commission)
Premiered at NightMusic, St David's Hall, 28 March 2023
Performed by Ruby Hughes (soprano), Huw Watkins (piano)
Recorded in Tŷ Cerdd studios, engineered and produced by James Clarke

Ethnie Foulkes - The Grasshoppers

Note by Heledd C Evans:

In this piece I've been exploring collaborative methods of performing, composing, and listening. The performer has control over note lengths and changes, responding to how the sound reverberates in the space. You are invited to listen and be with the piece however you want - feel free to move around, close your eyes, sit on the floor, etc.

Heledd C Evans is an artist and facilitator based in Cardiff, working with sound as both medium and subject matter - from multi-layered soundscapes to site specific installations and performances. Heledd was recently awarded the Wales Venice 10 Fellowship and is one half of sound performance duo Ardal Bicnic, working in various locations across South Wales and touring UK-wide. Currently she is a studio resident at Shift Cardiff, and runs a volunteer-led creative radio show, Pitch Radio, on Radio Cardiff.

Afon I - Heledd C Evans

Note by Andrew Cusworth:

On the 18th September 1890, Capel Soar's new Conacher organ was opened by the Zoar Harmonic Society in a performance of Handel's Messiah. At the time, and for many years afterwards, the fortunes of the town and its inhabitants were made and unmade by the iron industry, and, if it was sung that night, the aria Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron' must have carried extra resonance for the performers and their audience. Yet, Merthyr's industrial star, at least in the sense of iron, was already wavering, pointing towards a less certainly-rooted future for the town and its communities; towards an as yet unseen need for a future reinvention; towards, amongst many things, the rebirth of Zoar Chapel as Theatr Soar, and the rejuvenation of the Conacher organ.

Esgyn Soar takes its inspiration from the process of learning about and exploring the musical and cultural histories of Theatr Soar and Merthyr Tydfil: the rises, falls, and reinventions of one of Wales' most recognisably post-industrial towns. The name 'Esgyn Soar' is a play on the translation of 'soar' (the name of the theatre, and the English word 'soar' and it's equivalent, 'esgyn'). It is formed out of a playful semi­ melodic line and two fragments from the aria 'Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron' from Messiah, a quiet reference to both the organ's opening concert and the industrial heritage of the town. These ideas are extended into a piece that is part meditation and part toccata; part prayer, part humour; part quiet anger at the ravaging exploitation of the town by industry and its decline, and part hope for its cultural future, as embodied by Theatr Soar and the project to restore and celebrate its organ.


Andrew Cusworth is an award-winning Welsh composer who is best known for his choral music. He has written for musicians ranging from community choirs to internationally renowned soloists, and values opportunities to write for particular people, places, and occasions. His works have been performed and broadcast around the world and include pieces for Côr ABC, John Turner, Côr Dyfed Choir, Salisbury Cathedral Girl Choir, CaImus Ensemble, and the Choir of St Paul's Cathedral.

Andrew studied at Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar at Magdalene College, and holds a PhD from the Open University for research on the archival record of Welsh traditional music as a form of cultural history. He currently works at the University of Oxford.

Esgyn Soar - Andrew Cusworth

Composers' Studio was a pathway that gave six early-career composers - Eluned Davies, Jake Thorpe, Joseph Graydon, Luciano Williamson, Niamh O'Donnell & Tayla-Leigh Payne - the opportunity and support to write a 5-minute piece for conducted ensemble of 12 players.

Programme Note
This piece is inspired by the history of my village. It was home to a mine which started in 1720, and which was then abandoned by the conman who started it. Now it’s left to decay, with the land above falling into it, endangering the forest that has grown since, and exposing the old mine to the world above.

The trio at the start represents a time before the mine, when nature flourished, and as we progress the music becomes more menacing and concerning, indicating the creation of the mine and the destruction of the land. After this climactic downfall, we hear the stale waltz, representing what was left by the miners, such as hollowed out halls and metallic structures ready to rust. After this we fade into an echo of the past, decorated by small harmonic gestures. 


https://www.tycerdd.org/composers-studio

When The Earth Opens - Niamh O'Donnell

Composers' Studio was a pathway that gave six early-career composers - Eluned Davies, Jake Thorpe, Joseph Graydon, Luciano Williamson, Niamh O'Donnell & Tayla-Leigh Payne - the opportunity and support to write a 5-minute piece for conducted ensemble of 12 players.

Programme Note
‘Whose eyes would reply to mine’ is inspired by a quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

“I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.”

In the context of the book, the character Robert Walton writes this passage in a letter back to his sister, while trapped on his boat in the Arctic ice. The piece aims to explore this quote emotionally, but also takes inspiration from the physical vastness in which the character is trapped.

https://www.tycerdd.org/composers-studio

Whose eyes would reply to mine - Jake Thorpe

Composers' Studio was a pathway that gave six early-career composers - Eluned Davies, Jake Thorpe, Joseph Graydon, Luciano Williamson, Niamh O'Donnell & Tayla-Leigh Payne - the opportunity and support to write a 5-minute piece for conducted ensemble of 12 players.

Antiquities (2023-2024) is a work for large ensemble. The music is composed without clear pre-defined structures, and is composed akin to the narrative mode ‘Stream of Consciousness’. I examine my materials in the moment intuitively, deriving from my processes of inner listening and memory recall whilst composing. The work explores the blurring of the layers of materials present, and how material types may converge, diverge or deteriorate over durations. 

https://www.tycerdd.org/composers-studio

Antiquities - Joseph Graydon

Composers' Studio was a pathway that gave six early-career composers - Eluned Davies, Jake Thorpe, Joseph Graydon, Luciano Williamson, Niamh O'Donnell & Tayla-Leigh Payne - the opportunity and support to write a 5-minute piece for conducted ensemble of 12 players.

Programme Note
Flicker Fusion, draws inspiration from Tacita Dean's installation 'FILM'. Through her installation, she provokes the audience to engage with old media and demonstrates how they fit within our modern society.
There are calculated decisions when changes occur, they provoke themes of new vs old, organic vs industrial, minimalism vs detail, and monochrome vs colour.

https://www.tycerdd.org/composers-studio

Flicker Fusion (shortened Version) - Tayla-Leigh Payne

Composers' Studio was a pathway that gave six early-career composers - Eluned Davies, Jake Thorpe, Joseph Graydon, Luciano Williamson, Niamh O'Donnell & Tayla-Leigh Payne - the opportunity and support to write a 5-minute piece for conducted ensemble of 12 players.

Programme Note
This piece was inspired by the poem ‘Byji’ by Einir Jones. Its ‘movements’ are titled after various phrases used in the poem: ‘ar ennyd fach eneiniedig/at one tiny moment’, ‘wrth gell/ by the cage’, ‘tôn y llais/ tone of voice’, and ‘torri/break’.

https://www.tycerdd.org/composers-studio

'trio dweud' - Eluned Davies

Composers' Studio was a pathway that gave six early-career composers - Eluned Davies, Jake Thorpe, Joseph Graydon, Luciano Williamson, Niamh O'Donnell & Tayla-Leigh Payne - the opportunity and support to write a 5-minute piece for conducted ensemble of 12 players.

https://www.tycerdd.org/composers-studio

Wip. - Luciano Williamson

Pathway to Orchestra was development project in which five untrained composers (i.e. people who hadn’t received formal university or conservatoire training) received a series of 1-to-1 mentoring sessions with composer Lynne Plowman – plus supplementary resources and sessions from Tŷ Cerdd and project partners BBC National Orchestra of Wales . They received bespoke training and skill-development in writing for orchestral instruments: clarinet, violin, cello and piano.

The group gathered for a final workshop with players from BBC National Orchestra of Wales in which the pieces were played through and recorded.

Read more about Tom Elstob: https://www.tycerdd.org/tom-elstob

https://www.tycerdd.org/pathway-to-the-orch


The Weather Machine, Part II: Icicles

The Weather Machine, Part III: Flurries

The Weather Machine, Part IV: Melts

Composers's note:

'Nobody Lives Here' was shaped by many conversations with my friend, flash fiction writer Lucy Smith. After the piece was recorded, I invited her to write a short piece in response to it to bring our conversations around it to a close. Below is what she came up with!

Building a Den
By Lucy Smith

To make our den in the woods we take out all the dead leaves from the inside of a fallen tree. We brush woodlice out with a broom made of twigs. There is space inside the trunk big enough for both of us, a huge hole left from disease. The den waits for us everyday after school, like a chest cavity torn open, twisted roots like ribs ripped up into the air. We gather moss from the woods around us, push it together into a carpet. When we crouch inside, pale spring sun comes through the splits in the bark over our heads, striping over my navy wellies, your tattered trainers.

Nobody lives here, but sometimes you imagine you could. We wonder if anyone ever comes here while we’re at school. We find a dead mouse in the corner one day and take it outside the den, give it a three day funeral. We cover it in leaves and push it into the soft ground with a long, flat rock. We put different coloured flowers on the rock every day. 

The days get brighter. We forget our homes, we forget our families. We lie on the moss and look at the patterns of the exposed roots, imagine the storm that tore up this tree, imagine how it feels to be eaten from the inside.

You move away from town, I think. I can’t remember now. You always broke the rules, still came out to the den even when your parents told you not to. We used to hide in its safe gloom while your dad shouted your name through the trees, his voice cutting through your smile like an axe. We found it impossible to imagine a time when all this would rot away, when we didn’t fill that space with the warmth of our bodies, the disappearing clouds of our breath.

https://www.twitter.com/lucysmithwriter
https://lucysmithwriter.wordpress.com/

____

Pathway to Orchestra was development project in which five untrained composers (i.e. people who hadn’t received formal university or conservatoire training) received a series of 1-to-1 mentoring sessions with composer Lynne Plowman – plus supplementary resources and sessions from Tŷ Cerdd and project partners BBC National Orchestra of Wales . They received bespoke training and skill-development in writing for orchestral instruments: clarinet, violin, cello and piano.

The group gathered for a final workshop with players from BBC National Orchestra of Wales in which the pieces were played through and recorded.

Read more about Heledd C Evans: www.tycerdd.org/heledd-evans

www.tycerdd.org/pathway-to-the-orch

Heledd C Evans - Nobody Lives Here

Pathway to Orchestra was development project in which five untrained composers (i.e. people who hadn’t received formal university or conservatoire training) received a series of 1-to-1 mentoring sessions with composer Lynne Plowman – plus supplementary resources and sessions from Tŷ Cerdd and project partners BBC National Orchestra of Wales . They received bespoke training and skill-development in writing for orchestral instruments: clarinet, violin, cello and piano.

The group gathered for a final workshop with players from BBC National Orchestra of Wales in which the pieces were played through and recorded.

Read more about Heledd C Evans: www.tycerdd.org/heledd-evans

www.tycerdd.org/pathway-to-the-orch

Heledd C Evans - Full of Holes

Pathway to Orchestra was development project in which five untrained composers (i.e. people who hadn’t received formal university or conservatoire training) received a series of 1-to-1 mentoring sessions with composer Lynne Plowman – plus supplementary resources and sessions from Tŷ Cerdd and project partners BBC National Orchestra of Wales . They received bespoke training and skill-development in writing for orchestral instruments: clarinet, violin, cello and piano.

The group gathered for a final workshop with players from BBC National Orchestra of Wales in which the pieces were played through and recorded.

Read more about Sam Finn Jones: https://www.tycerdd.org/sam-jones

www.tycerdd.org/pathway-to-the-orch

Sam Finn Jones - Doomscrolling At Dawn (from Pathway to the Orchestra workshop, Tŷ Cerdd)

Pathway to Orchestra was development project in which five untrained composers (i.e. people who hadn’t received formal university or conservatoire training) received a series of 1-to-1 mentoring sessions with composer Lynne Plowman – plus supplementary resources and sessions from Tŷ Cerdd and project partners BBC National Orchestra of Wales . They received bespoke training and skill-development in writing for orchestral instruments: clarinet, violin, cello and piano.

The group gathered for a final workshop with players from BBC National Orchestra of Wales in which the pieces were played through and recorded.

Read more about Gwen Siôn: https://www.tycerdd.org/gwen-sion

www.tycerdd.org/pathway-to-the-orch

Gwen Siôn - Mynydd Glas [short clip]

Pathway to Orchestra was development project in which five untrained composers (i.e. people who hadn’t received formal university or conservatoire training) received a series of 1-to-1 mentoring sessions with composer Lynne Plowman – plus supplementary resources and sessions from Tŷ Cerdd and project partners BBC National Orchestra of Wales . They received bespoke training and skill-development in writing for orchestral instruments: clarinet, violin, cello and piano.

The group gathered for a final workshop with players from BBC National Orchestra of Wales in which the pieces were played through and recorded.

Read more about Małgola Gulczynska: www.tycerdd.org/ma%C5%82gola-gulczynska

www.tycerdd.org/pathway-to-the-orch

Malgola Gulczynska - Hope/Delusion

Malgola Gulczynska - Morphine

Malgola Gulczynska - Sorrow on a rainy day

Cor Cenedlaethol Ieuenctid Cymru yn perfformio At Breseb Baban Mair gan y cyfansoddwr Hector MacDonald / National Youth Choir of Wales perform Hector MacDonald's At Breseb Baban Mair

At Breseb Baban Mair

Meinir Wyn Roberts - Soprano
Carwyn Thomas - Clarinet
Sioned Evans - Piano

Three Songs - 'Two Pewits' (Dilys Elwyn-Edwards)

Three Songs - 'The Night' (Dilys Elwyn-Edwards)

Three Songs - 'A Piper' (Dilys Elwyn-Edwards)

Sonatina for Flute and Piano: Mvt. 3 (Presto)

Sonatina for Flute and Piano: Mvt. 2 (Poco Adagio)

Sonatina for Flute and Piano: Mvt. 1 (Allegro Scherzando)

Dovey Junction is a fairly barren spot:  in the middle of flat estuary marshes, with no paved road for access, it owes its existence entirely to the railway, to the little Welsh west coast line. Here, the line forks, the northern branch going on to the picturesque seaside resorts of Aberdovey (or, to give it its Welsh spelling, ‘Aberdyfi’), Barmouth, Criccieth and Pwllheli, the southern branch to the pretty university town of Aberystwyth. The train in summer is full of city children from Birmingham and Wolverhampton with buckets and spades and parents and grandparents, all off for a holiday at the seaside. No matter how bare the landscape at this point, the little train, chugging along, is heaving with excitement and delight. This work was written for performance by Borealis Brass (Alaska) at the UNESCO World Forum for Music, Los Angeles, USA, October 2005 at the invitation of the Fondazione Adkins Chiti: Donne in Musica (Rome). The score is published by Stainer & Bell.

Performed by A5 Brass Quintet:
Gwyn Owen - Trumpet
Tom Fountain - Trumpet
Dewi Jones - Horn
Merin Lleu - Trombone
Peter Cowlishaw - Tuba

Rhian Samuel - Dovey Junction

Live performance at Cornerstone, Cardiff, 6th March 2018, with electric keyboard.
Laura Deignan, clarinet & Zoe Smith, piano .

Prelude, Arioso & Dance - Mervyn Burtch [Mvt.1]

Live performance at Cornerstone, Cardiff, 6th March 2018, with electric keyboard.
Bernice Chitiul, soprano & Zoe Smith, piano

Sheet music available here: http://www.tycerddshop.com/product/morfydd-owen-sunshine-town

Performance made possible by access to the original manuscripts from Cardiff University SCOLAR: http://archivesearch.cf.ac.uk/TreeBrowse.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&field=RefNo&key=430

Image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.	
Attribution: Humphrey Bolton

Sunshine Town - Morfydd Owen

Performance by Vickers Bovey guitar duo, recorded on 4 April 2018 and premiered at St David's Hall's NightMusic that evening.
Composed by Lucy McPhee
Recorded & produced by James Clarke

McPhee writes:
‘April 4, 1968,’ is written to remember the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.
The melodic material is made from a chromatic cypher of April 4th.

I have taken three quotes from his final speech entitled ‘I have been to the mountaintop.’
These three quotes then make up my movement titles. 

1.	Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars…
2.	We want to be free
3.	I’m not fearing any man

Lucy McPhee - April 4, 1968 (Vickers Bovey duo)

Hymn To Hermes, composed by Joseph Davies.
Commissioned by Tŷ Cerdd for its premiere performance by Hermes Experiment at St David's Hall, 13th February 2018.
Recorded on 17th September 2018 at Tŷ Cerdd Studios. Engineered and produced by James Clarke.

Heloise Werner, soprano
Anne Denholm, harp
Oliver Pashley, clarinet
Marianne Schofield, double bass

Joseph Davies - Hymn To Hermes (performed by Hermes Experiment)

Lizzie Watson, soprano
Ethan Davies, piano

Morfydd Owen's setting of Away in a Manger. written in December 1915.

Thanks to Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives, and Jackie Jones for their kind support.

Morfydd Owen - Away in a Manger

Forever Interrupted by Claire Victoria Roberts (Tŷ Cerdd commission) 
Premiered at NightMusic, St David's Hall, 8 May 2018 
Performed, recorded and produced by Oliver Coates

Claire Victoria Roberts - Forever Interrupted (Oliver Coates, cello)

Iosif Purits (accordion)
Cecilia Bignall (cello)

This new commission from composer Lenny Sayers for St David's Hall's Nightmusic was recorded in Tŷ Cerdd Studio on 26th February 2019. Engineered and produced by James Clarke.

Lenny Sayers - (A Touch Of) Djinn

First performed by George Fu and Thomas Ang in St David's Hall Nightmusic series on 14th January

Recorded in Tŷ Cerdd Studio 14th January - George Fu and Thomas Ang (piano)
Engineered and produced by James Clarke

Jasper Dommett - Cave

The mission of Tŷ Cerdd – Music Centre Wales is to support, develop and promote the creation, performance and empowering experience of music, both in and of Wales. In so doing, we aspire to reach people in local communities, nationally and internationally, promoting excellence through vision, participation and training.

Tŷ Cerdd

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