String Quartet and the Moon
It’s been a good while since I checked in here. Lots of performances and premieres have come and gone, plus another Deal Festival is successfully under my belt. At the moment it is head down composing lots of music.
Today I’m working on a new string quartet, which premieres in France in October as part of the Page Blanche Festival. It has been a long time since I composed a string quartet, the last one I did was for a silent film, but I have composed quite a bit of chamber music for strings over the years, especially my (low) trio, Five Phase Sphere. This new quartet, titled Esprit Submergé also takes up the low sororities of the string instruments as it’s primary focus. I should mention that this particular string quartet is for Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass, a bit unusual, but I jumped at the chance to write for this group as it opens up these lower frequencies of the strings across all four instruments, even the violin. I feel the bass in particular draws down the frequencies that we focus on so that the lower tones begin to take on a more central focus in our listening. This drives a desire and the capacity for low melodic writing and driving rhythms that resonate in the depths of these instruments. I am also very focused on slow moving harmonies especially at the bottom end where voice leading pulls the listener through a series of dense but evolving chords.
The final thing to mention is that the work is in 3 movements, but I have inserted two intermezzi to break up the work. These intermezzi take inspiration fromr the other works on the programme for the premiere tour, namely arrangements of Bill Evans pieces. My two intermezzi take a leap off from two Bill Evan’s works, Blue in Green and Waltz for Debby.
Parallel to the string quartet I am making a new arrangement of my silent film score to René Clair’s film Entr’acte. This will be premiered by Counterpoise at the Wimbledon International Music Festival in November, it is funny returning to a piece I wrote about 14 years ago, but it’s still got lots I love about it and writing for silent film was a key first step in my training to write operas, which is the next thing to take up the Autumn.
In October I’m off to the USA for two really exciting development/workshop periods. One with an opera company who are developing my next major opera and the other with a dance company I have admired for many many years (since I was a kid in the 90s). I can’t wait to get in the room and to test out two very different theatrical works of mine as they start to coalesce and take form.
In September a really exciting concert will take place in Sao Paulo. Last year I composed a big suite of songs and instrumental movements called Moon Suite for the Santa Marcelina Cultura. This came after my time as the British Council’s Musician in Residence for Brazil. The work includes choirs, a new music ensemble, a jazz quartet and a carnival band. I wish I could be in Brazil for the premiere, but from what I’ve heard it’s going to be a spectacular.
That’s me for now. In the new year there will be new projects and new collaborations and another Deal Festival in the summer.