Score: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aig3KuLeC_ijhOEI-5oEmtDtHpdFPw

Concerto for Small Orchestra

Score: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aig3KuLeC_ijhOcwYyM_2VFjCdfLVQ

Written for and performed by the BBC NOW String Quartet at a workshop organised as part of Composition: Wales in February 2018, Bi-Diptych is a work in 2x2 sections which are interlinked by the use of dissonant, cluster like chords. 

The first and third section are fast, rhythmic and full of metre changes while the second and fourth are more melodious and reflective.

Bi-Diptych - for String Quartet (2018)

Score: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aig3KuLeC_ijhOcx-4o8ZJ7ktme1-A

Written for Music Theatre Wales's 'Make an Aria' project, Divided is a collaboration between myself and fellow student Lucy Astbury to put together a climactic aria from a fictional opera.

"Divided explores the life of Safina, a young girl brought up in a migrant shanty town on the border of England and Scotland, and her struggle between the naive hope ethat brought her parents to the country and the truth of her situations and surroundings. This aria explicitly explores these themes and the variety of emotions Safina encounters, contrasting the optimism of her parents hope - "greener grass", "welcome diversity" and "open arms" - with grotesque imagery of their reality - "the offal of England", "a thorn in the side".

Performed by Llio Evans and Ian Shaw.

Divided - Safina's Aria

Score: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aig3KuLeC_ijhO9citLZAkAodB6Yag

Programme notes available through the score link.

Ozymandias 0:00
Sonnet 55 9:13

Texts:
Ozymandias – Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”


Sonnet 55 – William Shakespeare (c.1564-1616)
Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

Art by Alex Zak www.alex-zak.com
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/ozymandias-alex-zak.html

Ozymandias/55

An excerpt from my piece The Evening Strait - Concert Prelude performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at Composition: Wales on the 3rd-4th March, 2020 at Hoddinott Hall, Wales Millennium Centre.

Program note: The first version of Concert Prelude was written in 2017 with the objective of being an exciting but varied overture-style work. Using a simplistic and obvious musical building block, the motif heard at the very opening of Concert Prelude informs almost all the subsequent music heard in the piece. The fourths are used constantly, both as melody and harmony as the piece progresses. The opening ascending flourish is met by a bright and brilliant introductory passage before moving to a sombre and fluid texture. The strings harmonics pulse brightly above descending lines in the horns and double basses and each entrance of the woodwind melody moves the harmony forward before returning to the opening harmonies via a clarinet solo of descending fourths. Then the opening motif is extended with a zig-zagging run played by various sections of the orchestra in an energetic and agitated section. Nervous energy continues into a section of static repetition in the violas and timpani counterbalanced by expanding quartal chords in the brass which explode and disfigure. The heavily rhythmic section progresses but is subdued by previous harmonies which continue to expand upwards. The music breaks down into rhythmic fragments in the woodwind before blending into the exciting final coda. The subtitle “The Evening Strait” was added after completion as I felt the main sections were reminiscent of contrasting evenings in the busy city centre with the tranquillity of the star over the Menai Strait.

Score (excerpt starts at page 21): https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aig3KuLeC_ijhPoHeEyJx9RKOzrZbw?e=CUR86b

The Evening Strait - BBC NOW Excerpt

Recorded live in the Hoddinott Hall by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, March 4th 2020.

Zachary Reading- The Evening Straits  040320

London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composer 24/25

Winner of the William Mathias Prize 2024.

PhD from Bangor University, 2024.

Zach Reading

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