Diverging and Becoming (2023) for six trumpets

Performed by the Academy Trumpet Ensemble, Royal Academy of Music, 26.01.2022

Trumpets: Jasmin Ghera, Will Thomas, Mia Plummer, Volodymyr Bykhun, Sigrid Bengtsson, and Thomas Leighton-Jones

Programme Note:

The initial impetus behind this piece concerns trumpeter Miles Davis. I learned a crucial lesson about Davis when I saw a scene from the 2004 film ‘Collateral’, where a character claims that the jazz icon learned music at the Juilliard School of Music. As a deadly assassin, Tom Cruise’s character then violently corrects him, stating that the jazz legend dropped out of Juilliard to learn with Charlie Parker instead.
To sum up my perspective on this revealing film scene, the following piece takes inspiration
from the notion of musicians starting on one path, diverging from it, and forming their own. Using Miles’ instrument (an instrument that can shout or sing, shriek or soothe) this piece for six trumpets uses this notion of becoming to drive its structure and character.

Diverging And Becoming

Al di là del bianco (2009), for bass clarinet and string trio

String Quartet - Commissioned by the Sante Fe Chamber Music Festival and premiered on August 4th 2017 by the Flux Quartet at the New Mexico Museum of Art.

Snap Dragon - for string quartet

for chamber orchestra
Thomas Zehertmair (conductor), Royal Northern Sinfonia
Full recording available here: https://www.nmcrec.co.uk/recording/house-night
Score and parts available here: http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/5087/58098

Tableaux extract

Tableaux (extract)

´the worlds within out petty voids´ for flute, oboe, violin, viola and cello.

Written for and premiered by ensemble recherche.

Recorded by Chloe Deng.

the worlds within our petty voids

British composer and Head of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music

Tableaux (extract)

Philip Cashian

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