Plug 2011

This is the week of PLUG in RSAMD. Ten concerts in five days and most of the music being played are premiers by the composers within the composition department. I have two pieces being played both on Thursday. The first is 'Silence, Imperfect Silence' for odd chamber orchestra at 1pm. I say odd because its for flute, sax, 4 singers, 2 pianos, percussion, 2 violins and a viola. It would almost make sense if there was a cello to round it off but nope. The idea behind it is the undergraduates have a module called 'Style in Performance' and in their 3rd year they have to play contemporary music so some of the composition department. This then explains the reason for the odd ensemble. The instruments available were auctioned sorry faily divided between the composers and thats what I ended up with. Considering I wanted flute, sax, 4 singers, piano, percussion, violin, viola and cello I think I did pretty well. Some people didn't get any of the instruments they asked for!
Anyway enough of that back to the gist of this post. So that piece is at 1pm on thursday and the other is at 7.30pm on the same day. The other piece is one you will have heard a lot about if you have been following this blog.... Its Dichroic Light on its second outing! It is once again played by Lydia Whittingham, my collaborator in the composition. If you want a taster of the piece before coming along you can listen to it on my website here.

Below I've embedded the full programme of the festival. I shant pick out certain concerts (apart from my own) to suggest you come to because from the rehearsals I've heard they are all going to be excellent! Tickets for all concerts in RSAMD are available from the box office. https://boxoffice.rsamd.ac.uk/peo/default.asp

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Commissions!

My aim for this weekend was to get at least one piece finished and I managed to do it with time to spare for another. I got Catherine’s trumpet solo done and sent to her. Just a short piano and trumpet piece, quite jazzy but quite short.
The other piece I’ve got to make a decent start on is for the Queen’s Music society. They are planning to put on an informal concert some time soon and have asked me to write something for Double Bass, Cello, Bass Guitar, Piano, Mezzo and timp. It’s a weird ensemble but could be interesting. Again its just going to be a short piece, probably about 2mins long or so, but being asked to write a piece is still being asked to write a piece.
Got the first rehearsal of my quartet this week, concerts only in about three weeks! Though CMC have agreed to advertise it on their site, they should mean a decent amount of advertisement and maybe a few more people coming to it.

Also in other news, I've got my inter-rail tickets booked! Away for a month over the summer and will probably do random updates on this.

Working

Surprisingly almost finished the draft of my septet and what’s left to do I know exactly where its going to go so shouldn't be too long before doing the final version.

As for the other pieces, well they are getting done slowly but surely, I think.
Deadlines are starting to come closer so really need to seriously get them
finished.

The concert is going ahead, not sure on time yet but it will be the evening of 1st April in the Harty Room in Queen's. So far the line up is a Piano trio by Piers Hellawell, a Piano Duet by Eddie Zatriqi, a septet by Omar Zatriqi, a quartet by Daniel Barkley, and two trios by Joel Cathright and myself. Might change a little before then but I dont think by much.

Beyond the Tone and concert

At long last getting "Beyond the Tone" played on Tuesday by the artists in residence. The workshop was supposed to be in the afternoon but performers being who they are decided to get an early flight home meaning its now first thing in the morning! Still its a performance and so I should have a recording up by Tuesday evening *fingers crossed*.

Also have started making arrangements for putting on a concert on the 1st of April with bits of work from other composers in Queens and one of my lecturers (Piers Hellawell) which should be interesting if it all works out. So far there is going to be a Septet, piano duet, piano trio, a quartet and two trios maybe a little more depending on composers.

Also got more info on the short opera I'm meant to be writing. Had a meting with everyone on Monday and its looking very promising, the librettists ideas are really interesting. Looks like the opera needs to be almost finished by august to be performed in a festival but under the understanding that it is a work in progress and finished for September for an actual performance. There are 4 of us each writing a 10 min opera, Omar and Eddie Zatriqi, Connor Mitchell and myself.

I think thats about all the interesting stuff for now.

Quartet No. 1

Finally got my Quartet No. 1 recorded and sorted out. The recording went pretty well yesterday, only had 2 hours to get it rehearsed and recorded so for such a complicated piece everyone did really well getting it together. Would love to do it properly some time but it would need a few weeks of rehearsals which people just don't have the time for.
Have a listen and leave your comments.