Vexations Reimagined 2020

(15 minutes)

In response to Kathy Hinde's Vexing Responses (alongside her Vexations Livestream), I reimagined Erik Satie's piece as if all 840 cycles are played (almost) simultaneously. Featuring Kathy Hinde playing the piano.

Tidal Iterations 2019

(24 minutes)

Reiterations - It score

These pieces were written in relation to the tidal movements in an estuary. Ideas of reiteration and superimposition are explored by way of using a single melodic motif and placing it in different relationships in terms of pitch and time to reflect the changes in flow, direction and height in regards to the tides.

Initially written as a string quartet, then for clarinet, piano and cello (Plus/Minus) and for medium sized ensemble. I am currently writing an iteration for solo viola.

Tidal Iteration 2 was performed on 6th June 2019 by Plus Minus Ensemble in a workshop at Bath Spa University.

Mark Knoop - piano

Alice Purton - cello

Vicky Wright - clarinet

I have been working on a series of pieces informed by the tides in the Severn estuary. The next piece will essentially be a canon taking information from tide charts from five locations along the estuary, the piece echoes the relative movement of water along the river. The parts which describe the height and flow of the water move in and out of phase with each other. The listener can affect how this phasing is heard as they move between performers and so change the location of the central point of focus.

After Kurtag 2018/9

(4 1/2 minutes)

After Kurtag score

Written for oboe and brass quartet. Takes the first nine bars from Kurtag's Hommage A Mihaly Andras (1978) for string quartet, using this as a starting point for the piece. Each subsequent cycle contains one bar but the piece is slowed so that each repetition has the same duration.

Coming Up For Air, 2018

Coming Up For Air score

Coming Up For Air uses an audio recording of a foetal heart beat to underscore the piece. The audio track gradually slows; not fast enough to immediately notice but enough to realise that the piece has been decelarating. The length of some sections is defined by the length of the clarinetist's breath. Within the duration of the clarinetist' breath, the performers play a melody described by paper hearts which are dropped onto a very large stave on the floor. These hearts have no time value so the melody played takes o a 'fuzzy" line. This contrasts and seperates the tightly written sections in-between. It has been performed in a workshop setting by members of Plus Minus. For piano, cello and clarinet.

Drift, 2018 (7mins)

Drift in was written in response to the movements and forces of the water changing with the tide in the Severn Estuary. I took the tide charts for the Severn for the week leading up to the performance and laid it out onto a stave for the cello to play. The pitch range is limited to the G on the second line of the treble clef to the D flat above. I wanted to limit the pitch range of the piece because I wondered whether listeners would somehow start to perceive the range as wider than it was over the course of the performance. I wondered if this limited range and incremental pitch changes would somehow seem to become larger with the range seeming to fill the listening space of the listener that would normally fit a much wider range. The (in this iteration) flute and voice play a version of the surface disruption of the water. Bearing in mind that the diminished 5th pitch range has to encompass the almost eleven metres of tidal height change, one can start to imagine how tiny the pitch changes must b to represent ripples on the water surface!!

An electronic sine wave provides the meter of the piece; one cycle which is a minute long represents a day. The piece is seven minutes long, with each minute representing twenty four hours of tidal movement.

This piece has also been performed as an open participation piece at Tidal landscapes at BEEF, Bristol.