Composed in 1963, James Iliff dedicated the score 'For George Self and the pupils of Holloway School, London'. James conducted the Holloway School orchestra and the new piece was performed twice in the concert. We hear the second of the performances. 
The score can be viewed on the British Music Collection website under 'James Iliff'.

Landscape

Mezzo-soprano: Grace Maria Wain
Conductor: Jonathan Berman
Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Written as part of the RSNO's 'Composer's Hub' Vox Clamantis takes inspiration from a text by John Gower, written around the same time as the 1381 peasant's revolt. 

The significance of the peasant's revolt is it is arguably the first time people of Britain rose up with a class identity. 

Building upon this, the piece brings into question the importance of patriotism and popular struggle within Britain. Drawing upon texts by Niclas Y Glais (Rwyn Gweld O Bedd), Langston Hughes (Democracy), and the Moorsoldaten the piece shows us an optimistic vision of the future, the importance of fighting for it, and the final joy: 'One day we shall cry rejoicing homeland dear you are Mine at last'

Score available here: https://www.universaledition.com/ben-lunn-7871/works/vox-clamantis-31601

Vox Clamantis (2021)

My favourite place is the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow. My mind and eyes are refreshed after a visit to the flowers and plants there. No clover there, however. I would associate that more with my early childhood summers on my uncle's farmland in Dorset. So, in imagining spring clover I allowed these memories to colour my vision and tried to grasp the 'sublime' that Keats and the Romantics offered. In this new duet we are indeed 'in clover' as the old phrase suggests; idyllic, bucolic, munching the evidently slightly hallucinogenic flower on an ideal warm spring morning. As in real life, idylls never last and soon there's competition for the clover - and the buzzing and biting textures of the middle section suggest that a cow's life is not always a happy one!
 
This commission pairs my 'Clover' with Oswald's 'Primrose'. So in the music of the new piece there are allusions to the older one. I took Oswald's falling fourth and rising sixth, his rising volume and pitch of scale passages, his passage built on falling semitone and rising minor third and his use of some dotted rhythms as some of the building blocks for my own quite different style of piece.
 
Well, that's enough for now - I must get out there and munch some clover! 
Eddie McGuire

Recorded by Pete Harvey June 2021

Image © Laurie Campbell

Clover - Eddie McGuire

I - Aukus
II - ...time stopped a petrified people, out of time...
III - sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es

Commissioned through Ensemble Proton Bern's 'ProtonWerk11' three European concerns, though maybe idealistically, aims to draw attention to three concerns within Europe that I feel deserve greater attention. 

'Aukus', named after the military alliance between Australia, UK, and US showing a dangerous antagonism against the people's of China and South-East Asia.

'...time stopped a petrified people, out of time...' draws inspiration from the continuing stalemate within Cyprus, taking a quote from the Cypriot poet Theodosis Pierdiris as its inspiration.

'sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es' draws upon a quote from Karl Marx, but instead of thinking of the processes of Dialectical materialism, the focus shifts to rising right-wing trends across Europe which are often ignored or overlooked, allowing them to grow and become an increasing threat.

Performed by Ensemble Proton Bern, Conducted by Aaron Cassidy

Three European Concerns (2021-22)

James Iliff composed 'A Curious Fable' in 2005 to a commission from his former RAM composition student Edward McGuire who typed up the final version in 2023. This resulted in the Sibelius audio file to be heard here. A live premiere is being planned.

A Curious Fable for solo flute

Albannach

The Albannach

Performed at the Holst Room, Morley College, London, as part of the Morley College Planerts Festival of Arts and Culture, celebrating the centenary of the first performance of The Planets by Gustav Holst. Introduced by Sarah Walker.

01 - 4 Vignettes

Debussy Arabesque No.1

8 instruments and 8 voices. 
A collage piece that draws on Albanian laments and kabas, Scottish pibroch and Medieval albas, amongst other things.

Alban lament (1996/8)

One of a set of pieces entitled Whiskies of Islay for flexible ensemble.
Performed by COMA.

Bunnahabhain from Whiskies of Islay (2006) (Hot Blast CD)

JAMES ILIFF ~ composer, composition teacher and cacti researcher. PHOTO: celebrating retirement from the Royal Academy of Music in 1988 with former composition students John Cardale, Janet Graham & Edward McGuire. PHOTO INSET: James composing, early 1970s (photo by Mary Iliff). He died in July 2014. His widow Mary and his former composition students Janet Graham and Eddie McGuire are cataloging and presenting his music.

Landscape

James Iliff

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