Performed by violinist Lieva Starker in Birmingham.

"Desire, however, returns in a different guise in Pierre-Henri’s composition, 'Spelling and Sounds'. Here, and unlike some of the lusher melodic lines heard before, desire is incessant, if not "obsessive", as the liner notes suggest. The constant—almost aggressive—return to a single idea in this work makes it perhaps one of the most cohesive on the album, but it also recasts the intimate medium of the solo violin as a medium well-suited to searching, or even digging, into its rich sonic palate." William Fourie for Music in Africa 
https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/lieva-starker-–-weerspieëlings

Spelling And Sounds (excerpt)

A piece for trio (voice, sax. and piano)and tape composed for the improvising ensemble Potage du Jour. The title sets the structural and musical basis of the piece. It creates a hypothetical world - literally- in which normal rules are broken down, for example, the singer is allowed to improvise with herself. This is reflected in the fact that the title, when pronounced at speed, evokes the astronomical term 'singularity'. This refers to the region at the centre of a black hole where the laws of physics break down.
The CD is available at Leo Records www.leorecords.com and https://music.apple.com/za/album/go-south/1081244343

Sing You! La-re-ti

A work for solo flute and soundtrack. The title consists of synonyms referring to ‘holding on’, alluding to the interaction of the flautist with her flute and also to the soundtrack. The playing techniques frequently rely on the rolling of the flute blowing into the instrument at different angles. The ‘holding on’ can be seen both as a metaphor for a delicate dance, while also trying to keep up with a ‘moving’ soundtrack. It has a concealed, pulse-like character, with pulses mostly scattered throughout the work, making consecutive ones an infrequent occurrence. This absence does not prevent the meticulous following of the soundtrack and its synchronisation. This supports an ongoing goal of the composer working towards a more involved and musical ‘coming-together’ of the electronic and acoustic, without the use of, for example, a click track. The soundtrack thus functions as both an aesthetic
( sound/musical world) and practical artefact (cue provider/machine).
The soundtrack is constructed from a recorded session in which the playing possibilities and extended flute techniques of the flautist Liesl Stoltz, for whom the piece was written, were explored.

The flute was recorded by Stradisphere Music.

Love.Lock.Nestle

This piece is a mock double bass concerto, based on the hypothetical stages, of a failing concerto. The piece comments musically on the roles of the soloist and ensemble. 
This is a 'live' recording of the South African New Music Ensemble (SANME),conducted by Robert Fokkens. The bassist is Brydon Bolton.

Bouble Bass Concerto

The piece Solecism is written for Horn in F and soundtrack. The impetus for the piece is the unpredictabilities that occur when the composer and the player explore more uncommon extended playing techniques. I was inspired by the restrictions of the natural horn; pitch, sound, range etc. of this earlier instrument. This I used as a model and superimposed it onto the modern horn to create a similar predicament. But, here, new restrictions had to be created. The title also refers to this outcome in that it implies the 'incorrect' use of the instrument, a faux pas or a mistake. This composition was composed for the Canadian horn player Mathew S James. This is a live recording of him performing it  at the NYCEMF 2016, USA. 

Version with reading score : https://vimeo.com/486459741

Solecism

The piece was a commission for the South African pianist and multidisciplinary artist Coila Enderstein in affiliation with the South African Music Rights Organisation, SAMRO. The focus of the piece was sculpted around the personality and interests of the performer, composing a piece that truly reflects the instrumentalist it is written for, drawing from her psychology and physiology. The piece incorporates extra-piano sounds, including the tap sounds against the lid of the instrument, foot and whistle sounds. The former techniques are designed around a choreographed sound generation concept, a kind of internal dance with the hands mimicked in the depressing of the keys, while engaging the lid of the piano. The extreme registers of the instrument are also frequently used to echo this idea, creating a dance through using the highest and lowest keys of the keyboard resulting in big arm movements.
Personality tests and interviews were conducted to create a thorough profile of the performer.

Self - Portrait (for solo piano and contact microphones)

A live recording of the piece Now for Triads for robot toy piano (built by inventor Ranjit Bhatnagar) and MIDI soundtrack (for stringed virtual instruments) performed at the New York City Electronic Music Festival 2018. Watch a video recording of the piece at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJxQYAVidWo

The title suggests the setting up of a musical environment in which moments, centred around a pitch completing the structure of a triad, establishes the melodic thread audible throughout the work. It also  alludes to the philosophical ruminations considering the robotic performer and its inability to naturally piece musical notes, phrases and sections together as would have been the case with a human performer to make compositional sense of the idea and intention of the piece. One of the foundations of a specific musical history, the triad, very dear to the composer, is implemented as a  a structural means throughout the piece, illuminating the pitches of which it consists. The triads are dressed as musical motifs of which there are two prominent ones in the work.

Now For Triads

A soundtrack for the experimental short film This Country_Lonely. The EP is available at the following link: https://itunes.apple.com/za/album/thiscountry-lonely-ep/1436813777

An Aesthetics Of Rat Bites

A work for solo clarinet based on the unique sound catalogue of clarinettist Visser Liebenberg.

Pierre-Henri Wicomb

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