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11th February 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of 'The Caress of the Sea 'by Nina Danon "We believe that, as a pod, [the sperm whales] caress and touch each other at short distances using acoustics. They emit very strong and heavy sounds, which vibrate inside the others like a deep caress, and that is how they display affection." Hervé Glotin, as quoted in David Cox's 'The People Who Dive With Whales That Could Eat Them Alive' © Nina Danon 2021 |
15th February 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Amy Beach – ‘Berceuse’ from Three Compositions, Op. 40 (1917) (arr. for cello and piano) ‘Berceuse’ was originally written for violin and piano and later transcribed by Beach for cello and piano. A berceuse is a gentle song intended for lulling young children to sleep. In instrumental music the term usually refers to a character piece for piano. Keeping in line with the soft dynamics and hushed feel, Beach calls on muted strings throughout her violin and viola version of the work; here the cello is unmuted due to its naturally mellow tones. The piece concludes with a very slow and hushed soundworld, lulling us all into a restful state. It is not known why Beach chose to write ‘La Captive’, ‘Berceuse’, and the ‘Mazurka’ making up the Three Compositions or why she chose to publish them together as Op.40. Given the overall simplicity of these pieces, one possible theory is that they were written for a pedagogical purpose. Regardless of her motivations, since Beach did not write extensively for solo string instruments, we are lucky to have this charming collection of pieces. © Angela Slater 2021 |
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18th February 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Raidho for alto saxophone and piano (2020/21) of Rachael Gibson Raidho (also spelt as Rad, or Raidho), the elder futhark rune ᚱ. To ride, travel, journey. This piece was written at a time where I wanted to explore new methods of notation and my own practice as an artist. For this piece, I wanted to enjoy the process of creating music, treating it as a journey of experimentation rather than solely focusing on the finished work. I also wanted to play with how much control I had as a composer by using more open and graphic notation. Raidho relies on improvisation, communication and focuses on the relationship between the players and the composer in a different way to that used in a fixed notated score, and I liked the idea of the performers shaping and changing the personality of the piece every time it is played. I would hope that in the same way my practice as a composer changes, this piece will grow and change through each performance. © Rachael Gibson 2021 |
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22nd February 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Michele Abondano - suelo seco for amplified cello and piano (2020–21)The title (Spanish for ‘dry soil’) responds to an exploration of dryness as an opportunity to study he fragility of timbre from the particular and intimate experience of friction. In this composition, noise is especially approached as a dynamic entity from the materials that rub, brush or scrap the strings. Therefore, performers are invited to approach their instruments as dry soil territories in which they move to discover each textural identity. Cello and piano are explored as mirrored sources of sound, thus both instruments respond to each other as mutual extensions of their timbral conditions. Amplification works as a microscope: rather than just intensifying the sound, it is thought of as a magnifier of the inside of timbre, its structure and behaviour. |
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25th February 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Paule Maurice - Tableaux de Provence for saxophone and piano (1954)
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the South of France with the Greatest Grandfather of the Saxophone, Marcel Mule to whom the work is dedicated.
Tableaux de Provence is a five movement work which describes with sensitivity and imagination the rich tapestry of Provence. The first movement shows a specific French dance where a large number of dance`rs hold hands, and, forming a chain, move to the rhythm of a tambourine player. The second is a short song for a female family relation - mother or aunt. “La Boumaino” is the third movement, evoking a gyspy women dancing. The fourth and most substantial movement translates as “From the Graveyard Les Alyscamps, a Soul Sighs”, describing a particular Roman burial site in Provence that has been shown in works by both Van Gogh and Gauguin. Paule Maurice wrote, “this movement was written during a very emotional period when I learned of the death of my husband’s cousin, whom we considered a brother. He was living in Provence in a vineyard with peach trees and olive trees in the country. I still remember the hours we shared reading poetry together. Thanks to him, I learned to experience the true charm of Provence, to appreciate the cricket’s song and the sound of the waterfall. I cannot express in words how devastating it was to lose him. This movement was written within two days at that period”. The final movement “La Cabridan”, is named after a large insect similar to a bumblebee or a cicada that is native to Provence.
Tableaux de Provence is a five movement work which describes with sensitivity and imagination the rich tapestry of Provence. The first movement shows a specific French dance where a large number of dance`rs hold hands, and, forming a chain, move to the rhythm of a tambourine player. The second is a short song for a female family relation - mother or aunt. “La Boumaino” is the third movement, evoking a gyspy women dancing. The fourth and most substantial movement translates as “From the Graveyard Les Alyscamps, a Soul Sighs”, describing a particular Roman burial site in Provence that has been shown in works by both Van Gogh and Gauguin. Paule Maurice wrote, “this movement was written during a very emotional period when I learned of the death of my husband’s cousin, whom we considered a brother. He was living in Provence in a vineyard with peach trees and olive trees in the country. I still remember the hours we shared reading poetry together. Thanks to him, I learned to experience the true charm of Provence, to appreciate the cricket’s song and the sound of the waterfall. I cannot express in words how devastating it was to lose him. This movement was written within two days at that period”. The final movement “La Cabridan”, is named after a large insect similar to a bumblebee or a cicada that is native to Provence.
1st March 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Chloe Knibbs - Ravelled for cello and piano (2021) Ravelled: to tangle; to disentangle; to clarify; to tease out fibres; to fray Ravelled explores the contradictory state of seeking emotional resolution but becoming further entangled by oneself. Drawing on the experience of grief, the piece contrasts dramatic chords and overpressure with vulnerable melodic lines to convey a volatile mindset that oscillates from frustration to sadness. The piano illuminates the fragility of the situation through arpeggiation, shifting harmonies and extended pedal sustain. |
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4th March 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Punch echo for alto saxophone and piano (2020/21) by Angela Elizabeth Slater Punch: to strike with the fist. Echo: a sound or sounds caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface back to the listener. This work draws on the meaning of the words ‘punch’ and ‘echo’, representing these through the lens of Laban’s Eight Efforts. Laban Movement Analysis is a method and language for describing, interpreting and documenting human movement. I feel a deep connection between the gestural language of movement and music. Laban categorises movement into eight efforts, descriptively named Float, Punch (Thrust), Glide, Slash, Dab, Wring, Flick, and Press. In this work I explore the effort of ‘punch’ on both macro and micro levels, exploring the musical impact of a ‘punch’ and its subsequent aftermath, the echo effect. © Angela Elizabeth Slater 2021 |
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8th March 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Rebecca Clarke – Cello Sonata I. Impetuso (1919) This work was original conceived as a viola sonata written in 1919 when Clarke was 23 years old. It was written for a competition sponsored by arts patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, where it achieved a joint first place with Ernest Bloch’s Suite for Viola. Twentieth-century impressionism and romanticism are palpable through extensive use of whole-tone scales, and expressive lines reminiscent of Debussy and Ravel brought together in an intense soundworld unique to Clarke. This first movement begins with a strident dramatic improvisatory solo from the cello which establishes the fiery rising theme that characterises this movement. The piano enters with a turbulent accompaniment to the cello’s broad rhapsodic melodic material which builds to a climax before dissipating into a |
quieter section that explores the depths of the cello’s range. This stillness doesn’t last for long with a burst of energetic material leading us back to the cello’s impassioned melodic lines. Velvety arpeggiated figures bring us to the concluding passages of this passionate and energetic movement.
© Angela Elizabeth Slater 2021
© Angela Elizabeth Slater 2021
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11th March 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Punch echo for alto saxophone and piano (2020/21) by Lara Poe - Mainspring for alto saxophone and piano (2020) Mainspring is constructed from two fragments of contrasting material – one of these ideas is quite rhythmic and driven, while the other is more lyrical. The form for the piece arises from the contrast between these fragments – while the outer sections are rhythmic, featuring quite a lot of saxophone slap-tongue gestures coupled with staccato piano writing, the middle section is lyrical and revolves mostly around the second fragment. The word “mainspring” refers to the principal spring involved in the mechanism of a watch, clock, or other mechanism. In this case, these two fragments act as a sort of mainspring within the mechanism of the piece. © Lara Poe 2021 |
15th March 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Carmen Ho - Ripple for cello and piano (2021) Ripple was inspired by the gestural movements of ripples. It explores the ranges of the instruments, as well as ways to morph and blend colours, harmonies and gesture as the piece progresses. © Carmen Ho 2021 |
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18th March 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Blair Boyd - Dim shapes grow clearer for alto saxophone and piano (2021) One of the features of Dim shapes grow clearer is the exploration of sustained pitches through alterations of dynamics and timbre. The static opening of the piece is interrupted by a 4-note descending figure in the saxophone. Well known from John Dowland’s lute song Flow my Tears, this ‘falling tears’ motif symbolized grief in Elizabethan music. While this motif is quickly abandoned by a solo flourish in the saxophone, the sombre tone remains, yet somehow more resigned. To continue the piece, sustained pitches are ornamented in the saxophone while chords sound at the bottom of the piano's register where pitches are less distinct and blur together. These chords strike like chimes as a reminder of the passing of time, time which often offers clearer insights. © Blair Boyd 2021 |
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22nd March 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of SUTURE or solo cello and live electronics (2021) by Sarah Westwood SUTURE is an exploration of the chaos narrative; where stories, often based on illness or trauma, do not necessarily follow a linear trajectory, where the world is un-made. The work is also devised from research on the meridian lines of a person, in particular the heart protector (Pericardium) which acts as an imaginary gate protecting around our hearts. For this work, I wanted to make something that was reflective yet immediate, fragile yet strong. The work co-mingles the above concepts together: the image that came to mind was a wound that had not quite healed, which led to the term Suture, meaning to stitch together. To hold together the edges of a wound. |
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25th March 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Florence Price - Snapshots for solo piano (1952) I. Lake Mirror (October 13, 1952) II. Moon behind a Cloud III. Flame Composed between 1947 and 1952, Snapshots is one of Price's most expansive piano works, and her most persistently modernist. The first movement, "Lake Mirror" —is the one most obviously indebted to the post-Romantic notions of beauty. Overall its approach is decidedly impressionistic, and some passages are post-tonal. The same aesthetic of impressionistic beauty governs "Moon behind a Cloud," whose alternation of clearly triadic, tonal materials with whole-tone and other post-tonal ones recalls that of Clouds. In the concluding movement, "Flame," dispenses entirely with the first two movements' tranquil and occasionally mysterious beauty. Instead, "Flame" is relentlessly dissonant, fueled by a conspicuously virtuosic urgency. © John Michael Cooper (2020) |
29th March March 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Partition for cello and piano by Hayley Jenkins (2021)Lockdown in 2020; normal life stopped. Like many civilizations before us, partitioned, but this time not by war, land, religion, or race, but by something we couldn't see. I was reading about Persia at the time and how despite being conquered and divided by other powers, their culture was something that survived. I realised that communication, arts, and culture were important more than ever before, and that the nature of these conversations and creative outlets needed to adapt and change in order to continue. Partition is a series of five small moments that are all loosely linked with motif or harmony. The premise is that these moments represent conversations between two people with each person (instrumentalist) contributing differently each time; sometimes it is an equal contribution, sometimes one might be more emotional support to the other, or one is particularly dominant. |
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1st April 7.00pm 2022
Video Premiere of Sarah Westwood - Kindred for solo piano (2021) a collection of miniatures for solo piano Kindred (adjective): 1: of a similar nature or character: like a kindred spirit 2: of the same ancestry: kindred tribes Each miniature is an homage to the baroque keyboard works of Jean-Philippe Rameau. The work as a whole also considers the connection between the performer and their instrument, regarding the pianist and the piano as sharing 'kindred-ness'. The pianist is welcome to play them as a whole collection, as separate miniature pieces, or in pairs with the original works by Rameau. Kindred is dedicated to pianist Jelena Makarova; the first collection (I - VI) was composed during a Creative Retreat at The Red House Aldeburgh in early 2020 (supported by Britten Pears Foundation). It was later premiered by Jelena Makarova at Bitesize Proms 2020. I am currently working on the second collection. © Sarah Westwood 2021 |
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