It’s a reasonably quiet time, during which I’m mostly focused on completing a Piano Concerto for ELISION and soloist Alex Waite, commissioned by the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, which has a planned premiere in September 2022.
The piece, which will be ca. 25 minutes long, is scored for the slightly unusual instrumentation of solo piano & three ensembles: 1) contrabass clarinet, tenor saxophone, bassoon, trombone; 2) pedal steel guitar, harp, percussion, & electronics; 3) bass recorder, cello, double bass. The work is going well so far, and the piece is starting to take shape.
There is a wave of concerts that will — hopefully! — start back up in spring 2022, as well as some long-delayed recording projects, but for now it’s a reasonably quiet period in terms of performances. There are a few odds and ends of guest lectures, teaching, and a few conducting projects across the autumn/winter period, which are listed below.
Conducting
Conductor, Ensemble Musikfabrik. MusikFest Berlin (Berliner Festspiele), Großer Saal, Berlin Philharmonie. Portrait concert of Ann Cleare. 5 September 2021. (Additionally, rehearsal conductor for Enno Poppe Prozession, 31 Aug – 4 Sept 2021)
Conductor, Ensemble Proton Bern. Protonwerk 11. Liestal, Switzerland. Workshop and development sessions with the six selected composers: Zeno Baldi, Samuel Hvozdík, Sachie Kobayashi, Seong-Hwan Lee, Ben Lunn, Lina Posėčnaitė, 13 November 2021. (Concerts to follow in Bern, Zurich, and Basel, 9–15 and 30–31 March 2022.)
Creative development project with The Monochrome Project trumpet octet, working on music by Dufay, Riccardo Nova, Rolf Wallin, Julius Eastman, etc. 30 November – 1 December, Essen, Germany.
Also, the first of the six videos from the ‘Adventure #5’ project I did in July with Ensemble Musikfabrik was recently published. The other five, which were performed in a concert on 2 July 2021, will follow soon.
Teaching and Guest Lectures
Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität Linz, Austria, guest lecture (online), 27 October 2021.
Austin Winter Composer Festival, teacher for weeklong course, with Line Upon Line percussion, Austin, Texas, 8–15 January 2022.
There is also a current call for scores for an additional teaching & conducting project I am doing in July 2022 with the Leipzig-based group Tempus Konnex for their International Composer Exchange Week, with concerts, lectures, lessons/mentoring sessions, rehearsals, etc. aimed at emerging composers. I’ll be conducting the rehearsals and concerts, and my friends Jason Eckart and Ann Cleare will be joining me on the composition staff. Deadline for submissions is 10 April.
Miscellany
Producer, recording with EXAUDI, work of Christopher Fox. London, November 2021.
Other events will be added as details are confirmed.
