Splurge

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Part of Platform 4’s Melodrama suite for Ensemble 360 and the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival 2018, with thanks to the excellent Kathryn Williams joining the ensemble on flute.

Bassoon – Amy Harman

Flute – Kathryn Williams

Face – now with programme note

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From 2013 – 2016 I made a number of attempts to describe the geometry of faces and bodies using sound (Exhibition Suite; Anatomical Study: Voluptuous; Piano Concerto No. 1), and then The Woman-Notes-Thing goes a step further and describes a creature *made* from sounds.

Picasso asked, “are we to paint what is on the face, what is inside the face, or what is behind the face?” – a timely reminder that there is more to a good portrait than just getting the dimensions right. So the second movement of this piece is haunted by a tape part, an attempt to move beyond the first movement’s geometrical depiction and reveal that which haunts the subject.

Face
for piano, vibraphone and tape

1. Portrait
2. Behind the Face

Performed by Passepartout Duo (Piano: Nicoletta Favari, Vibraphone: Christopher Salvito).

Thanks to Passepartout for an enjoyable concert and four enthralling performances of Platform 4’s new works.

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With Ensemble 360

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Recordings of mine and the rest of Platform 4’s pieces for Ensemble 360’s Russia in the Round festival can now be enjoyed at Platform 4’s Soundcloud

So that’s ‘Paraphrases’ by me, Chris Noble’s ‘Bear Ascend’ and Jenny Jackson’s ‘Focus Pull’

Tom James’s new piece “Barn Dance” – a wind quintet – is PENDING for good reason, as it’s due a BBC Radio 3 broadcast some time next month.

You can still hear our podcasts with Matt Hunt from back when we first conceived the project, and there’s also the video below has me discussing the project/trying bits out at the piano.

2 Days Warning About Next Concert

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Sheffield Cathedral, Friday February 3rd, 1.15PM

Platform 4

Featuring Rachel Shirley

and choir of flutes and bottle blowers

PROGRAMME INCLUDES

Chris Noble – Veneration Walk for 3 Saxophones

Chris Noble – Of Limits (selection)

Tom Owen – Anatomical Study: Voluptuous

Tom James – Ophelia

Jenny Jackson – Hooting not Drinking

Elizabeth Maconchy (1907 – 1994) – Colloquy for Flute and Piano (movement III)

Porridge Column

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Porridge Column is now available on the Soundcloud in a slightly botched-together form, using the tape track and a recording of P4’s live performance at our “Hooting and Drinking” concert at Bank Street Arts. I’ve overlaid the two tracks to try and get the tape part a bit higher in the mix than it was that night. I’m playing bass clarinet, with Tom Davies on double bass and Jess Jevon on clarinet.

This is a fixed “concert version” of an idea I had for a free improv piece where a speaker reviews new porridges for a Sunday supplement. There is a certain amount of intrigue around the monologue as it appears in the tape part of this version, so I’ll make sure it appears here in full soon. Porridge Column is getting a facelift for part of ‘Embodiments’ (see above), so a better recording may also be forthcoming.