Simon Howard memorial concert

[Guest]

Forum members might be interested to know that a concert/reading in memory of the late Simon Howard, a longtime member of this forum of course, is taking place at City University in London on Tuesday 24 March, in which composers and performers who knew Simon, including myself and several other forum members to my knowledge, will be taking part.

[french frank]

I've moved Richard's post here so that it doesn't get lost in the messages about the other meeting.

I've just turned down an offer of £100 to cover my expenses for a 2-day stay in London just before this concert, so may not be able to manage another trip so soon afterwards.

Thanks to Richard for mentioning it and will be glad if he would post further details when they're available.

[Richard Barrett]

I certainly shall, thanks for starting the thread. I edited the OP to remove the reference to Pabmusic because it didn't seem appropriate here.

[Padraig]

I can't be there, RB, but I have reason to remember 'Julien Sorel' as a friendly member of the forum. I wish you all well for the memorial concert on March 24, and if I happen to be celebrating St.Patrick a week earlier, I'll raise a glass for Julien.

[Richard Barrett]

As requested, here are further details of the concert:

Against the Day: A concert for Simon Howard (1960-2013)
24 March 2015, 7.00pm, City University Performance Space, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

Admission is free - I strongly advise advance booking!

Unquiet lullabies, dream-visions of nightless night, sound-images of time stilled and time reversed … A concert tribute to the poet Simon Howard (1960-2013), based around the themes that pervade his work and featuring contributions from the many composers and performers who were his friends.

Programme:

Richard Barrett - lost for piano
JS Bach - Prelude and Fugue in C# minor (WTC book 1)
John Hails - Enlightenment for harp and electronics (WP)
Alistair Zaldua - contrejours for piano and electronics
HIF Biber - Passagalia, from the Rosenkranz-Sonaten
Richard Barrett - tendril for harp and electronics (UKP)
Barbara Woof - Utopians, electronic music (WP)
Evan Johnson - three reversed movements, to bring destroyed objects back to life for piano
Andrew Noble - The Laugh of the Medusa for speaking pianist (UKP)
Philipp Blume - Departures: for Simon Howard, electronic music (WP)
Philip Venables - Numbers 91-95 for speaker (with tape recorders), flute, harp and woodblock [text by Simon Howard]

Performers:

Pavlos Antoniadis (piano)
Milana Zarić‡ (harp)
Richard Barrett (electronics)
Persephone Gibbs (Baroque violin)

[eighthobstruction]

How Lovely....

[Richard Barrett]

I hope I'll be excused for bumping this just once - it's next Tuesday. Hope to see some of you there.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I was unable to attend, alas. A moving and intelligent description of the event in Tim Rutherford-Johnson's The Rambler blog:

Last week I attended a concert for the poet Simon Howard, who died in December 2013. It was not really a memorial as such – no eulogies or anything like that. More, it was an opportunity to gather Simon’s friends and many admirers to listen to a cross section of the music he inspired and that had inspired him, and to place on the record the small but intense influence Simon and his poetry have had on a little segment of the Anglo-American new music scene over the last few years.

So there were two pieces by Richard Barrett, lost for piano (the title of whose version with electronics, adrift, Simon borrowed for one of his own chapbooks) and tendril for harp and electronics. Barrett is a composer Simon always felt close too; he also loved the music of the Baroque, and there were pieces here too by Bach and Biber, sensitively chosen by the concert’s organiser, John Fallas.

John, I suppose, is one of few people who can claim to have known Simon, who was a severe recluse, at all well (I’m not one of them). He did an exemplary job putting the programme together, not only in terms of the music and the composers it contained, but also the performers (Pavlos Antoniadis, Milana Zarić, Carla Rees, Emily Howard, Persephone Gibbs), and wrote a beautiful programme essay to boot. Everything fit, and was fitting. Simon’s poetry as musical text was represented by Philip Venables’ numbers 91–95, a setting of part of Howard’s long poem numbers (2010). Almost all the other composers on the programme had known Simon, like I had, through his presence on Radio 3 webforums and later Facebook. Philipp Blume and John Hails contributed new pieces – enlightenment for harp and recording, and Departures for four-channel sound, respectively – both connected to Simon’s poetry and poetic enthusiasms: enlightenment is the title of the last poem he posted to his blog. Evan Johnson, Andrew Noble and Alistair Zaldua were present in the form of pieces for piano (with electronics in the case of Zaldua’s contrejours). The concert began with Utopians, an electronic piece constructed by Barbara Woof and Michèl Koenders from voice recordings by Howard and Jane Harrison. It was remarkable to hear, in this way, on this occasion, Simon’s voice for the first time.

I’m not writing a review here, so I shan’t. But aside from its biographical meaning this concert was extraordinary for the quality of the music; I honestly don’t think there was a weak piece in the programme (and how often can you say that?). Several of them were very very good indeed. In showing Simon at the centre of a small but fiercely fruitful network of musicians this concert’s sadness was also its gift. And now that network has lost its heart.

Many of Simon Howard’s poems can be read at his blog, walking in the ceiling; his published works include Zooaxeimplode (Arthur Shilling Press), numbers (Knives Forks and Spoons), adrift (Oystercatcher Press) and Wrecked (Red Ceilings Press).

A worthy tribute to a much-missed contributor to this Forum.

[Richard Barrett]

A worthy tribute to a much-missed contributor to this Forum.

Thanks for posting this. As you'll know, Tim's blog is one of the most consistently interesting places of its kind to find out more about contemporary music in many of its forms - other readers please note!

It was a very moving occasion, I wouldn't lightly use a word like unique but I can't remember experiencing anything else quite like it.

[french frank]

I haven't forgotten that several people responded to my enquiry about a compilation of Simon's poems which I still have on my computer (and I know Anna has some too, and has recently enquired), but I was, erm, slightly discouraged on being advised that a more professional approach might be appropriate . In any case, it would be a lot of work when I'm a bit tied up atm (but my Masters was in textual criticism/editing ) - and I'm not sure how many have been published in his chapbooks.

[Richard Barrett]

I haven't forgotten that several people responded to my enquiry about a compilation of Simon's poems which I still have on my computer (and I know Anna has some too, and has recently enquired), but I was, erm, slightly discouraged on being advised that a more professional approach might be appropriate . In any case, it would be a lot of work when I'm a bit tied up atm (but my Masters was in textual criticism/editing ) - and I'm not sure how many have been published in his chapbooks.

Simon's blog is still up, and moves are afoot to put out the material which hasn't been published so far - although a lot has, and the publishers have put in a lot of work for which they deserve some support from people purchasing the books. Simon once told me his approach to poems for the blog was somewhat different from his approach to poems intended to be seen on physical pages.

[french frank]

Simon's blog is still up, and moves are afoot to put out the material which hasn't been published so far - although a lot has, and the publishers have put in a lot of work for which they deserve some support from people purchasing the books. Simon once told me his approach to poems for the blog was somewhat different from his approach to poems intended to be seen on physical pages.

I do hope to follow this up - and will liaise with Anna - to see if there is anything that might be of interest. I did take to the funeral a copy of what must have been his first after something of a break from writing. He posted it very diffidently on the BBC messageboard and probably - as was not unusual - destroyed it, but later asked me for a copy as I said I'd kept it.