An introduction to new music - as recommended by composers...

At Britten Sinfonia, commissioning and performing new music is a huge part of what we do, but we know that new and contemporary music can be daunting if you haven't had much experience of it before. Our upcoming concerts in April feature two world premieres - Bryce Dessner's El Chan, which will feature in our At Lunch Four programme, and Elena Langer's story of an impossible love, which will be performed in our programme featuring pianist Benjamin Grosvenor.

To get you in the 'new music' mood, take a listen to our Spotify playlist of works by the composers we've commissioned in our 2015-16 season (including Bryce Dessner and Elena Langer). We've also asked the OPUS2016 shortlisted composers for their suggestions of what to start with if you're looking to explore more...

Daniel Kidane:

Don’t be scared to immerse yourself in to something new – you have nothing to lose but so much to gain.

Robert Peate:

Anything and everything – just keep listening and be open to what you hear. Don’t worry about ‘understanding’, just experience it (more than once if you can).

Neil Smith:

There are some great pieces to begin with such as Berio’s Sinfonia or Xenakis’ Rebonds but sometimes the best way in is to listen to more experimental popular music. Anyone who enjoys a bit of Autechre shouldn’t struggle with the best bits of Stockhausen or Boulez. There are also lots of British composers who write music I still consider beautiful in quite a traditional manner: take George Benjamin’s amazing Written on Skin for example.

Andrew Thomas: 

Find a sound/texture you like and follow how it develops during a piece - be open to all the parameters of sound available in contemporary music and embrace what you don’t understand - the music I most admire is the music I don’t understand!


Andrew Baldwin:

My advice would be to start with a composer(s) you know and like, and list what musical ideas you like about them (what is common in their music etc). Then consult with a music friend that knows of other composers that use similar processes/ideas. Suddenly you will notice your listening repertoire growing and discovering some great music. I created a Spotify playlist that my teacher and I came up with of works that I would find interesting, and there hasn’t been one piece that I haven’t taken something away from – as well as discovering some new favourite contemporary composers.

Emma Wilde:

I think people should not be afraid. Most people have been confronted with modern art in some way even without knowing it, they have probably been to an art gallery or exhibition and modern music is no different. My listening recommendations would include anything by Ligeti as I think that was the first contemporary composer I really connected with. Also the German composer and pianist Nils Frahm, his live shows are electric, he has a great connection with the audience and is a really innovative composer and performer, there are many good videos on YouTube.

 

Margaret Haley:

Tune in to Radio 3 programmes: Late Junction, and Hear and Now. Listen with an open mind. Listen to recordings as much as you can, then listen again. Music festivals can also provide a great way of sampling new music, e.g. HCMF shorts.

Sohrab Uduman:

Start with whatever is to hand and whatever grabs your interest for whatever reason, however seemingly profound or trivial it may appear to be. It is not life-threatening, will not cause you physical damage and will not, probably, change your political allegiance. It is art, a voyage, an adventure; an opportunity, at the very least, to step out of routine and ‘normative behaviour’ and experience something that should prove beautiful, moving, revelatory and subversive.

Gonçalo Gato:

An open mind and receptiveness to the fantastic, as opposed to the ordinary. Also, it is important to look for concerts that feature some sort of introduction carried out by music historians, musicologists, or composers themselves. This will provide context and prepare the listening experience for those who find it more difficult.




James Hoyle:

I don’t believe in starting with something ‘easy’ - I’d suggest to just throw yourself in, listening to as many different types of new music as possible. There’s such a wide variety out there so there is surely something for everyone.

At Lunch Four features Bryce Dessner's El Chan, Schumann's Piano Quartet Op.47 and a selection of Bartok's folksong-inspired Duos - Norwich Fri 8 Apr, Cambridge Tue 12 Apr & London Wed 13 Apr. Find out more.

Benjamin Grosvenor directs features Elena Langer's story of an impossible love, Mozart's Piano Concerto No.27 and a works by Bartok and Strauss - Bradford on Avon Sat 23 Apr, Cambridge Wed 27 Apr, Norwich Fri 29 Apr & London Sun 1 May. Find out more.

What inspires composers?

Ahead of the OPUS2016 open workshops taking place this week at the Barbican (Friday 22 & Saturday 23 January), we asked our ten shortlisted composers what inspires them...

Robert Peate:

Everything really... I still get very excited when I see/hear people playing instruments, and the idea of writing music is still an inspiring thing. Apart from music itself anything with a strong character or feeling to it can suggest ideas... it’s hard to say exactly where and when and what you’re inspired by most of the time, a lot is also subconscious I think. Nature is always a source of fascination, pleasure, truth and inspiration to me though, as are relationships between people.

Margaret Haley:

Visual sources. Abstract paintings, e.g. Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky. Poetry often shapes the outcome of my vocal music. Astronomical phenomena have a strong bearing on my music for traditional instrumentation. The rotational forces of the cosmos have certainly influenced my writing over the last decade.

Neil Smith:

My pieces can be the result of inspirations from almost any subject or area. They don’t always have to be extra-musical, as often I find particular musical ideas are inspiration enough to write a piece. Recent pieces have been based on Spanish poet Lorca, the nature of musical speeding up and slowing down, the phenomenon of discovering historic hoards, the science of animation and Arabic art. In the past five years I have found science in particular a fertile are for exploration. Scientific models can be represented in fascinating musical ways. This is something I want to explore more in the future.

Emma Wilde:

Everything but particularly other art forms, visual art, drama, dance, poetry and literature, all sorts of music, lately I think listening to electroacoustic music has changed the way I think about composing a lot. I listened to a lot of popular music growing up and still do and I think this has had a big effect on me too.

Gonçalo Gato:

I would say that what inspires me is indeed the mystery music still is, and how it makes me feel and think all sorts of things. I get inspiration from other people’s music because it transforms me, and because I can hardly picture myself living without it. Music is a kind of ‘speaking sound’, and in this sense I can hear the human voice in it. I am also an audiophile, very interested in Hi-Fi and acoustics. I take much pleasure from the ‘plastic’ aspect of sound and from sound reproduction fidelity.




James Hoyle:

Many things inspire me: recently these have included visual art, medieval music, architecture, food, political issues... It’s impossible to pin down any one point of inspiration because I enjoy the fact that many seemingly unrelated things can collide together as I work.




Andrew Thomas:

Anything from a novel, a line in a poem or an image to a noise, sound or smell from traveling and the real world. I gain constant inspiration from contemporaries and older composers and would cite particular influence from Nielsen, Sibelius, Purcell, Ligeti, Harvey, Grisey and Japanese music and aesthetics.

Andrew Baldwin:

My inspiration for pieces is often drawn from eclectic places – unless it is a commission with a specific theme. I have a big interest in orchestration and find that I spent a lot of time of this once my musical ideas are formed. I always find brilliant examples in the works of Ravel, Varese, and Takemitsu, as well as contemporaries Philip Hurel and Magnus Lindberg. My compositions often take a directive to effect the listener in a range of emotions.

Sohrab Uduman:

A difficult question since I cannot pin it down to one thing. The impulse, idea, can come from a number of sources; fine art (particularly important for me in recent times), literature, landscapes, environmental sounds, pieces I have heard, plain curiosity. Any piece I write usually takes up something that was present, to one degree or another, in a previous piece of mine.




Daniel Kidane:

Everything and anything. It could be a sound, or something visual or perhaps an idea I want to explore.

Click here to book your free place to attend one or both days of the OPUS2016 open workshops at the Barbican (22 & 23 January).

OPUS2016 shortlisted composer - Robert Peate

Full Name: Robert James Peate
Age: 28

Where are you from? Where do you live now? Do you think this is relevant to understanding your music?

I am originally from Dymock in Gloucestershire, and currently live on the Llanover Estate in Monmouthshire. Nature and the countryside has always played an important role in my life and so also in my work, and like with anything knowing more about the music’s inspiration etc can deepen a listeners understanding or appreciation of it. However, I always try to create a sense of abstract unity or identity in a piece, and hope that it stands up on its own without much extra-musical context.

How will you approach writing your OPUS2016 composition for Britten Sinfonia?

Not 100% sure yet.. I have a few ideas but I’ve only just found out that I’ve been shortlisted - I’ll have to think quickly though as sketches are due soon!


Who have you worked with previously? What ensembles/orchestras/organisations?

Various professional student and amateur ensembles including BCMG, The Academy Manson Ensemble, Chroma, Fretwork, Orchestra of the Swan, The Britten-Pears Composers Ensemble, The Solaris and Castalian String Quartets, The Band of the Household Cavalry, The London Bach Society and currently the LPO. Plus soloists including Christopher Redgate, Huw Watkins, Rolf Hind, Elgar Howarth, Clare Hammond, Frank Ollu.


When did you first start to write music?

I started writing little songs on the guitar/piano when I was about 9 or 10, then started trying to write little piano pieces down when I was probably about 11 or 12.

Describe your growth as a composer to this point. What were the pivotal points?

I’ve had a slightly bizarre development as a composer in some ways I suppose – when I started really trying to get to grips with composition around age 14-15 I was obsessed with Bach, counterpoint and the harpsichord on the one hand; writing lots of contrapuntal fragments and harpsichord minuets, and on the other hand I was playing drums in a series of grunge bands. I soon went on to more expressive or romantic character pieces and tried my hand at orchestral writing quite a lot, studying scores and writing ambitious scale tone-poem type pieces (none of which I’ve ever heard – but I managed to gain some technique through writing them), at this time I went on to playing organ, guitar and singing in various folk, jazz and rock bands, and also picked up the cello and double bass in school/college orchestras.

When I went to study composition for the first time at Birmingham Conservatoire I soon realised how little I knew of contemporary music and it took me at least the next 4 years to soak up and somewhat internalise what was at first a shock to the system artistically. I suppose in general I’ve tried my hand at most things except graphic scores and overly conceptual music (I’ve always been a bit of a nuts and bolts composer!), and over the last couple of years have finally started to get the feeling that I’m connecting many of the often contrasting threads that have gone through my musical tastes, and am developing a more personal language. As for pivotal points I can’t remember exactly what made me want to concentrate on composition, though it was probably listening to Bach, but starting at Birmingham, and then at the Royal Academy in London where the standard of playing was so high, were probably pretty pivotal.


How do you start a new work/what is your composing method?

Every time I start a new piece I have the feeling that I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing, and can’t believe I’ve ever managed to write anything before.

I usually start with something small that I’m confident in, and will generally have a detailed and confident idea of this. Then it’s all about working hard and living with the material in order to find context, more and more I realise that context is everything and it is always a challenge to find this in the beginning stages of a work, but once things start to click it’s a great feeling. Each piece has it’s own identity and getting a sense of that always takes a little time (though occasionally things pop out more or less fully formed..). I never use a computer except for copying up at the end, but whether at the piano, the desk, on a walk, a bike ride, cooking dinner, watching tv or lying in bed I am working in one way or another – living with your ideas is important I think.


What living person do you most admire, and why?

Pretty much all the people I admire the most are dead – it’s usually the case with composers!


How do you feel about the opportunities that are available to composers?

They are few and far between.


What would be your advice to other young composers today?

Keep working.

What does the future hold for you? What are your next steps going to be as a composer?

I don’t know, it’s difficult to live more than a few months ahead of myself. I’m into a PhD at the Royal Academy of Music so I hope to continue with that and look for a decent job at the end of it, but all I’m aiming for ultimately are chances to write and develop my work with ensembles and instrumentalists.


You can join Robert and the other OPUS2016 shortlisted composers on 22 & 23 January 2016 for two days of workshops at the Barbican in London, with discussions and performances of the pieces these composers have been working on. Find out more and how to reserve your place here.