For piano. I'm drawn to syncopated dance styles of the Twenties and Thirties... Any excuse to include a photo of the immortal Louise Brooks.

Read my article on Louise in: Philip Ward, 'Instead of a Critic: Essays Written and Unwritten' (2022).

Brooksie

For alto saxophone and choir.

This piece re-imagines for choir William Byrd’s instrumental pavane ‘The Earle of Salisbury’ (c.1612). The saxophonist, meanwhile, is inspired by another ‘bird’, jazzman Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, and quotes phrases from Parker’s compositions (including ‘Ornithology’). When the choir find their voice, they intone bird names: the birds chosen are among those mentioned by Shakespeare and therefore likely to have been familiar to his contemporary, William Byrd. I was pleased to discover that Parker’s favoured mode of composition was the ‘contrafact’ – adding a new melody over an existing ‘standard’. Accordingly, the piece concludes with a wordless choral arrangement of Byrd’s Pavane, over which the saxophonist weaves a jazz-inflected contrafact.

TEXT
B-b-b-b… Bird!
Magpie, guinea hen, lapwing, kite.
Mallard, popinjay, pelican and crow.
Kestrel, nightingale, osprey, snipe.
Bunting, paraquito, cormorant and jay.
‘Ornithology’, ornithology. 
The study of birds.
And also a piece of jazz…

The Study of Byrds

Collage n. 1. an art form in which compositions are made out of pieces of paper, cloth, photographs, and other miscellaneous objects, juxtaposed and pasted on a dry ground. 2. any work or construction put together from assembled fragments. [Fr, pasting]

Collage

Bonne Bouche #2

Third morsel for string things. Not yet a banquet.

Bonne Bouche #3

As I wrote in my book 'Instead of a Critic' (2022), I've toyed for ages with the notion of a musico-dramatic work using favourite figures from Greek mythology. Little has come of it, but a few of the ideas are briefly condensed here.

For a video version go to https://youtu.be/Ng_cgcMJ4WA

Figures in a Landscape (Ancient Thebes)

Another quarrel with myself. This one starts out in classical vein before an "O friends, not these sounds..." moment, whereafter it turns more songlike and (I hope) approachable (and, I hope not, too cheesy).

Not These Sounds

3 notes, x 3, x 3, etc. – and it all adds up to 3 minutes 33 seconds of music! Aller guten Dinge sind drei: All good things come in threes (as they say in Germany).

Aller guten Dinge... (2024 remix)

Live recording from recital at Tokyo Opera City, 15 November 2017

Can also be viewed as a video at: https://youtu.be/6U9eDOW7TTQ

林原澄音ヴァイオリンリサイタル（２０１７１１１５）後半

Massenet: Meditation from Thais

Live recording of recital at Tokyo Opera City, 15 November 2017. Sumine Hayashibara (violin)

Can also be viewed as a video at: https://youtu.be/1yRpfYuxdTc

●Yoichi Sugiyama(1969-) /  The Horse, for solo violin ~after a Tibetan folk theme (2017 commissioned work)

This Tibetan folk song originates from the nomadic people in the Kham region of Tawo.

During the variations which follow the main theme, the notes of a series are gradually interpolated, as if coming from afar, until little by little the whole series is assembled in its original form. It is said that the word ‘Ta’ also means ‘horse’, and in this piece it is identified with the ‘wind horse’ (Lung-ta) of Tibet which grants people’s wishes. (Yoichi Sugiyama)

●杉山洋一（1969-）/ 馬　～チベット民謡による　（2017委嘱作品）

民謡は、タウ地方の遊牧民のもの。
主題とそれに基づく変奏のまにまに、遠くから少しずつオリジナルへ戻る音列がはさまれてゆく。もともと、タウは「馬」と言う意味の文字を与えられていたともいわれ、この曲では、チベットで願いをかなえる風の馬、ルンタにもかけている。　（杉山洋一）


◆Yoichi Sugiyama
Yoichi Sugiyama (b. 1969) is a composer and conductor active in Europe and Japan. He studied composition with Franco Donatoni, Sandro Gorli, and Akira Miyoshi and orchestral conducting with Emilio Pomarico and Morihiro Okabe. As a composer, Sugiyama has been featured internationally at festivals including Wien Modern, the Festival d’Automne, Milano Musica, Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Biennale di Venezia, and the Tiroler-Festspiel Erl. Yoichi Sugiyama came to prominence as a conductor after conducting Luigi Nono’s opera “Prometeo” with Ensemble Modern Orchestra in 2000. Since then, he has collaborated with ensembles across Europe and Japan including Klangforum Wien, Collegium Novum, Tokyo Sinfonietta, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and Nieuw Ensemble. He was awarded the 13th Keizo Saji Prize in 2014, and the Toshi Ichiyanagi Contemporary Prize in 2017.
For more details, visit: 
https://www.operamusica.com/artist/yoichi-sugiyama/

◆プロフィール（日本語）
http://www.tokyo-concerts.co.jp/jp/artists/%E6%9D%89%E5%B1%B1%E6%B4%8B%E4%B8%80/

Yoichi Sugiyama The Horse (2017) after a Tibetan folk song

For unaccompanied choir. Although there is a text (my own translation of one of Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Narcissus’ poems, interspersed with vocalise), these robot performers prefer to sing wordlessly.

Narcissus passed. His beauty rose
unstopping from his nearness of being,
condensed like the scent of heliotrope.
The task for him was but to see himself.

What came from him he loved back in,
and was no longer contained by the open wind.
In rapture, he closed the ring of forms
and annulled himself and could exist no more.

For accompanying video, go to: https://youtu.be/Ng_cgcMJ4WA

Narcissus #1

◆Sumine Hayashibara (violin)
Sumine Hayashibara was born in Tokyo and started learning the violin from Professor Ryosaku Kubota of the Toho School of Music. After her studies in Japan, she went to Trinity College of Music in London to study with Nicholas Roth, a pupil of Jenő Hubay and leader of the former Budapest Trio. While studying at Trinity, she won several prizes both as a soloist and as a chamber music performer, and obtained her Fellowship diploma there. She was also a member of the London Soloists’ Ensemble, with whom she appeared as soloist on a number of occasions, and for a number of years was leader of the Miklós Quartet (later the Miklós Ensemble), giving regular performances at St Martin-in-the-Fields and a number of other venues in London. She also gave two duo recitals with Mr Joseph Seiger, who for sixteen years had been the official accompanist for the late Mischa Elman: one in St John’s, Smith Square, London and another in Tsuda Hall, Tokyo.

On her return to Japan, she gave recitals with an ensemble in the Purcell Room in London and the Tokyo Bunkakaikan as part of the ‘Japan Anglo-Japanese Festival’. She also appeared at Suntory Hall as a soloist in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, at Casals Hall, as soloist in the Third Violin Concerto of Mozart, and as a soloist in the Sibelius Violin Concerto in the Asakusa Public Hall. She also gave three solo recitals that were warmly received by large and enthusiastic audiences: one at the Tokyo Bunkakaikan and two at Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall. The most recent of these featured first performances of two new works by contemporary composers, including The Horse by Yoichi Sugiyama.

●Ms Hayashibara also gives violin lessons in Japanese and English to students in the Tokyo area. For details, please contact Mr Tanabe at: private.violin.rad@gmail.com

◆Chikako Yoshida (Piano)
Born in Japan, Chikako Yoshida started learning the piano at the age of three. She studied at the Tokyo College of Music, where she obtained her Masters Diploma, and subsequently at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, where she obtained her Diplôme Supérieur in piano and chamber music. While in France, she also won third prize in the ‘Excellence’ category of the Concours International d’Île de France. Since 2008 she has given frequent solo and chamber recitals in Paris and Tokyo, and currently holds teaching positions at the Japan Women’s University and Komoro Senior High School.

プロフィール
◆林原　澄音  (Sumine Hayashibara / ヴァイオリン)
故久保田良作氏に師事。
英国トリニティ音楽大学の演奏科にて、イェネー・フバイの弟子であった、ニコラス・ロス氏に師事。同大学の奨学金を得て、フェローシップ・ディプロマ（最高位演奏家資格）を取得し卒業。
在学中、弦楽四重奏の“ジョン・バビローリ”プライズ受賞。バッハのソロ演奏における“ヴエラ・カントロヴィッチ”プライズ入賞。
ルジェーロ・リッチ、イヴリー・ギトリス、エリック・フリーデマン各氏からもレッスンを受ける。
卒業後は、ミクロシュ・カルテット（ロンドン・セント・マーティン・イン・ザ・フィールド教会の専属カルテット）の第一ヴァイオリン奏者となり、また、ロンドン・ソロイスツ・アンサンブルのメンバー、兼ソリストを10年間務める。
ミッシャ・エルマンの専属伴奏者であったジョセフ・サイガー氏とのデュオ・リサイタルは、日英ともに、高い評価を得る。
帰国後、高橋眞氏に師事。カザルス・ホール、サントリー・ホールでのコンチェルト、ロンドン・フェスティバル（小）ホールのパーセル・ルームでのアンサンブル公演（２００１ジャパンフェスティバル）、東京オペラシティと東京東京文化会館の（小）ホールでのソロ・リサイタル他、杉並公会堂大ホール（＋小ホール）、両国門天ホール、ニューヨーク・カーネギー（小）ホールなど、多数のコンサートに出演。
　国内外で、ソロ・リサイタル、コンチェルト、室内楽、現代曲の初演など、幅広く演奏活動を行っている。２０１７年、杉山洋一作曲「馬～チベット民謡による」を初演する。


●日本語と英語でのヴァイオリンレッスン可（東京）。詳細は田辺まで。private.violin.rad@gmail.com（田辺）


◆吉田千佳子（Chikako Yoshida ／ピアノ）
東京音楽大学ピアノ演奏家コース卒業後、同大学院修了。その後フランスにわたり、
パリ・エコールノルマル音楽院の高等演奏課程のディプロムを取得（ピアノ、室内楽）。
第7回イル・ド・フランス国際コンクール第3位入賞。パリ市内の教会や国際芸術都市にてソロリサイタル、室内楽コンサートを行う。
現在日本女子大学、長野県小諸高等学校にて後進の指導にあたる。