upcoming: London, Leeds, Manchester, Canterbury

[Serial_Apologist]

Sunday 16 October 3pm - St. John's Smith Square, London

Programme:
the light gleams an instant (1996) for piano
Zungenentwurzeln (1997) electronic music
fold (2016) for soprano saxophone - UK premiere
Katasterismoi (1999) electronic music
dying words (II) (2013) for flute-playing vocalist
epiphyte (2016) electronic music - UK premiere
interference (2000) voice/pedal bass drum/contrabass clarinet solo

Ensemble L'Imaginaire:
Keiko Murakami, flute/voice
Adam Starkie, contrabass clarinet/voice/pedal bass drum
Philippe Koerper, soprano saxophone
Maxime Springer, piano

Thanks for the advance notice of this, Richard. I might well go along.

Even in London concerts of this sort are quite hard to find.

[Bryn]

To help me decide upon my travel arrangements, what time is the concert expected to end, roughly?

[Richard Barrett]

To help me decide upon my travel arrangements, what time is the concert expected to end, roughly?

There is about an hour of music. In Strasbourg there was no interval, and I guess there would be no reason to introduce one on the tour either.

[Bryn]

There is about an hour of music. In Strasbourg there was no interval, and I guess there would be no reason to introduce one on the tour either.

Thanks for the info. That means I can use my bus pass all the way there and back. Last bus back from Victoria these days is 7pm. Until a year or so ago it was 10.30pm. Such is the incompetent mess First Group have made of their Public Service remit.

[CallMePaul]

I was at the Manchester concert yesterday - a lunchtime one in the University's Martin Harris Centre. The programme omitted the 3 electronic pieces and lasted about 45 minutes. The piece that I found most powerful was Dying Words II and I would like to here the full series of which this is the second part. Generally I do not enjoy solo flute musiuc but this piece was for mew the highlight of a very intertesting concert. It may be worth noting that the Manchester concert was free, whereas the Leeds concert (I cannot speak for the other venues) is a paying one.

[Richard Barrett]

I was at the Manchester concert yesterday - a lunchtime one in the University's Martin Harris Centre. The programme omitted the 3 electronic pieces and lasted about 45 minutes. The piece that I found most powerful was Dying Words II and I would like to here the full series of which this is the second part. Generally I do not enjoy solo flute musiuc but this piece was for mew the highlight of a very intertesting concert. It may be worth noting that the Manchester concert was free, whereas the Leeds concert (I cannot speak for the other venues) is a paying one.

Thanks Paul (if I may call you that ). I'm sorry, I thought the programme was the same for each concert. Regarding the flute piece, the completion of this series was somewhat stalled until I encountered this ensemble (and Keiko Murakami in particular), but now I'm happy to say I'll be completing it for them. (Not all of it is for solo flute.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The complete programme was presented at Leeds last night - and wonderful it was, too; about 65mins of terrific Music (would make a brilliant CD - <hint><hint>) given totally committed performances by the young players. A revealing "portrait" programme, offering a fascinating overview of twenty years of a composer's work and demonstrating a vast and impressive range of expressive potency. I share CMPaul's enthusiasm for dying words II (so delighted to read:

Regarding the flute piece, the completion of this series was somewhat stalled until I encountered this ensemble (and Keiko Murakami in particular), but now I'm happy to say I'll be completing it for them. (Not all of it is for solo flute.)

) which might have seemed a "new" venture into a "gentler" means of communication after the thornier harmonies and textures of some of the pieces earlier in the programme - the light gleams in an instant, perhaps most obviously. But, I felt that the flute/voice piece was more of a closer focus on this "gentler" Music - bringing to the forefront what was underlying in the earlier works, rather than a totally (or "unexpected") "new venture"; and I heard a lyrical "line" holding the aggressive right-hand material together in gleams, for example - and the sensuous qualities of Barrett's* electronic Music has always been one of its prominent and most attractive features for me.

I greatly enjoyed the saxophone piece fold, too - the Music's fluid velocity presented with evident enjoyment by Phillippe Koerper - and, as for Adam Starkie's performance of interference (delayed by a "technical problem" - it looked as if the Music stand screw had got stuck, preventing the Contrabass Clarinet's "spike" from going in; some disturbing offstage hammering noises causing some concern! ) - astonishing! (AND he "sings" the opening Music, sounding more "Cantor-ish" than Carl Rosman's "vocalisation" - creating a relishably different effect, which spilled over into the clarinet Music. Pedal Bass Drum just as attention-grabbing, and all the more effective Live in comparison to the sound coming from domestic Cd speakers, of course.)

A wonderful concert - and superb weather for the day in Leeds: and a full moon beaming beneficently as we left the Hall. Good-sized audience, too - with a greater mix of ages and ethnicity than I've noticed in other such events. Many thanks to Richard and his superb performers - Canterburians and Londoners whole-heartedly recommended without reservation!


* - I feel a bit self-conscious writing just the surname when I know it's likely that the composer might actually be reading this: feels a bit like being in a Grammar School run by a Head who really wanted a Public School gig! But "Richard" - when not specifically addressing him - seems presumptuously "pally", too.

[Bryn]

What's wrong with "this composer's"?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What's wrong with "this composer's"?

I dunno - just seems a bit "vague" - mebbe ... ?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ooh! And I forgot to mention - the programme notes supplied by this composer are exemplary!

[Richard Barrett]

Many thanks for your report and your kind words. I would think we're all on first name terms round here, aren't we? - those of us who have first names anyway!

Some transpositions were made of the vocal part in interference for Adam, which I think accounts for the difference in sound quality. When writing "purely" vocal music, of course, it's always for soprano, or mezzosoprano, or whatever, whereas when writing a vocal part to be played by an instrumentalist there generally isn't such specificity, so that vocal parts can end up in the wrong tessitura for someone who's otherwise up for playing it. Dying words couldn't be transposed for most male flautists because so much depends on unisons or near-unisons between flute and voice. Interference, on the other hand, doesn't have that problem (and has been performed by a woman in fact, the Canadian player Lori Freedman). The opening needs to be perceived as high in pitch, but not to the extent of losing its dynamic level. (Adam's version is a fourth lower than Carl's at the start, and about halfway through the solo reverts to the original pitch) Pardon my waffling.