I’m excited to have received some funding from the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton to lead an interdisciplinary project exploring artificial intelligence language generation of song texts. The ultimate outcome will be a new song cycle for British soul sensation Hannah Williams and a superstar quartet of Riot Ensemble players, which we’ll premiere in Southampton and London in July 2023!! More soon!
Terrific workshop last week with Riot Ensemble for my collaboration with poet Luke Wright. Exciting to be putting stuff together and making plans for a tour, hopefully in 2021.
Here’s a taster of the poetry:
Is this how it ends for all of us?
love born at festivals
in chemicals and poetry
love that lived beyond our bodies
love that conquered motorways and calendars
love that conquered half of England
is this how it ends?
from The Driver, by Luke Wright
More info and some taster audio on the Riot Ensemble website: http://riotensemble.com/the-driver/
Back in 2015 I wrote a piece with the amazing poet Luke Wright for the London Sinfonietta, which we performed at Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was a great experience and I’m delighted that our collaboration will continue as we develop a new piece for, and with, Riot Ensemble over the coming year or so. The first stage of development is 2 days together in mid-September to try out some ideas and get things moving. This will happen at my stomping ground at the University of Southampton and is possible thanks to Riot Ensemble’s Arts Council funding and some support from the University. Big thanks to Aaron Holloway-Nahum for believing in the project and being so supportive.
Exciting to see what happens!
Aaron Holloway-Nahum, director of the excellent Riot Ensemble, has just put up a recording of my Riot and Juice Vocal Ensemble commissioned piece ‘Songs for Stanley’. The recording is from Juice’s performance earlier this year at the Wednesdays at the Forge series.
So the boy arrived, he’s called Stanley Robin Oliver and is great!
This means that Juice will premiere ‘Songs for Stanley’ next Thursday 6th November at 7pm in Shoreditch Church alongside a couple of new pieces by Holly Harrison and Amy Beth Kirsten for Juice and the Riot Ensemble. Details available here. Should be fun and hope to see you there!
My lovely and patient wife, Anna, is very pregnant right now. It’s an exciting time! The baby not turning up at this point means that I can’t announce the name of my new piece for Juice Vocal Ensemble yet. Following my dedication of Lullaby for Joni for my daughter I thought it would be wise to even out the score and have written five new settings of nursery rhymes for the impending arrival, Songs for ______. The new piece (with it’s full name), which has been commissioned by Riot Ensemble, will be performed at an excellent sounding gig, ‘she is a myth‘, at Shoreditch Church on 6th November at 7pm.
I’m delighted to have been selected by the Riot Ensemble to compose a new piece for Juice Vocal Ensemble. Australian composer Holly Harrison and myself have been chosen from 126 applications to the ensemble’s 2014 Call for Scores. I’m looking forward to composing a new piece for the fabulous vocal trio for performance in November!
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