A party and a pledge - celebrating ten years of At Lunch

If you've ever sat in the audience of one (or more) of Britten Sinfonia's At Lunch concerts then you'll recognise the feeling of anticipation when a new piece of music is about to be premiered. Think about it: your ears are some of the first in the world to encounter what is going to be played, as a member of an attentive audience silently waiting to experience something new... And if you haven't had the pleasure yet, what are you waiting for?!

Britten Sinfonia is committed to commissioning music from some of the world's most established names and the best emerging talent. You'll find a huge variety of new music throughout each concert season, interwoven with the more familiar. So far in 2015-16 the orchestra has performed new music from the OPUS2015 winner Edward Nesbit, Anna Clyne and Daníel Bjarnason as part of its At Lunch series, which has been shedding light on new music for ten years, with five programmes to explore each season.

Britten Sinfonia musicians cutting the cake at the 10th anniversary party

In celebration of the tenth anniversary of the At Lunch series, on 20 January we hosted our own birthday party after the Wigmore Hall performance of Anna Clyne's This Lunar Beauty that included bubbly, balloons and of course, cake! We welcomed composers whose works had been premiered over the last ten years and displayed some of their scores as a mini exhibition. Since the first concert in October 2005 at Cambridge’s West Road Concert Hall (where every single At Lunch programme has been performed) there have been 43 new works premiered in 157 performances. Our Principal Cellist, Caroline Dearnley has performed in the most At Lunch programmes (33) and she joined us at the party alongside some of her fellow musicians and those who have helped make some of our music commissions possible: generous individuals who have donated to Britten Sinfonia’s Musically Gifted campaign.

A selection of scores from the past ten years

Since launching in 2013 Musically Gifted has raised nearly £50,000 from 135 individuals who have chosen to be part of new music from as little as £10. Ten of the lunchtime commissions have been supported through this scheme. At the party, we launched match-funding for the Musically Gifted campaign to the tune of £10,000 thanks to a generous, anonymous individual who wanted to boost our commissioning campaign for new music this year. If we are able to raise £10,000 before 31 March 2016 from people like you, we will be able to claim the generous pledge of the same amount. This means we need your help. From £10 to £1,000 every gift will help us get closer to our target. You can support Bryce Dessner, Elena Langer, Kenneth Hesketh, Sohrab Uduman (OPUS2016 winner), or Mark-Anthony Turnage, four of whom will feature in our up-coming At Lunch concerts.

So far we've raised £5,650 towards the £10,000 target (since 20 January) but your donation really will make all the difference and help us cross that finish line. We'd like to thank: Pauline Adams, Stephen & Stephanie Bourne, Robert Clark & Susan Costello, Eduardo G. Melguizo, Susan Maddock, Simon & Jenny Martin, Patrick Meehan, Trissa Orange, Sue Prickett, Judith Rattenbury, Roger Rowe, Paul Sackin, Barry & Ann Scrutton, John Stephens, Richard & Fiona Walford and three anonymous donors for helping us to get this far. 


A huge thank you to everyone who has supported Britten Sinfonia’s At Lunch series over the last ten years and all our composers and musicians who have performed so wonderfully. We’ve welcomed more than 25,000 of you to hear new music at lunchtime and hope to see many more of you in the coming seasons.

For more information about Musically Gifted and how you can be part of new music visit www.musicallygifted.org.uk and don’t forget that if you donate before 31 March 2016, your gift will qualify for match-funding and will be worth twice as much to Britten Sinfonia’s new music campaign.

Rising Sun, Falling Rain: Our Concerts Director's introduction to Toru Takemitsu

 Ahead of our At Lunch Three tour, James our Concerts Director, shares an introduction into the work of Toru Takemitsu, whose music is featured in the programme...

The timing of our Britten Sinfonia At Lunch Three tour this week is particularly poignant, as our musicians Emer McDonough, Lucy Wakeford and Clare Finnimore perform Toru Takemitsu’s trio for flute, harp and viola Then I Knew t’was Wind, marking the 20th anniversary of the composer’s death, 20th February 1996. Takemitsu is a composer I admire greatly, his music much like that of Messiaen’s: inspired by nature, the environment, Japanese cultural aesthetics but also his bold confrontation of social and racial boundaries of his era (he was commissioned by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic back in the 60s, at the time hailed as one of the world’s leading composers).

His sizeable output is stylistically difficult to define, his concert scores layered with traditional Japanese, jazz, pastiche and eclectic musical idioms not to mention his 90 or so film scores, both mainstream and arthouse, including one to a film starring Sean Connery and Will Snipes. His first feature-length film score was for the controversially erotic 1956 Crazed Fruit, written for guitar, banjo, trumpet, piano, flute harmonica, tenor sax, vibraphone and an array of percussion, unusual to say the least for the time, littered with seductive portamento and detuned effects, Hawaiian-esque guitar slides and a sleazy jazz waltz.

Although he later confessed that as a young man he had little or no knowledge of traditional Japanese music, Takemitsu’s incorporation of traditional Japanese instruments (particularly the biwa and shakuhachi) and non-Western themes, notably in his earlier works Eclipse and November Steps, led where others feared to tread at a time when the Darmstadt School were by far the loudest voice in the classical music scene.

(c) Kazumi Kurigami

Takemitsu is in good company for our hour-long programme featuring some of the relatively limited catalogue of repertoire scored for this configuration of flute, harp and viola, particularly Debussy’s trio written for the same ensemble. Sixty years earlier, Debussy was experimenting with incorporating aspects of the unfamiliar into the familiar, a process of ‘borrowing’ from different musical styles and traditions, a process and a work with which Takemitsu was evidently familiar.

Personally, Takemitsu’s musical logic speaks to me, not purely through a string of evocative titles (it really is much more than that), but in how this music ‘breathes’ so-to-speak; the fact that he was largely self-taught and unafraid of pastiche, but also how this endearing somewhat patchwork approach to composing provides a glimpse into his philosophical, ethereal approach to The Cosmos.

For more on Takemitsu, I’d recommend his autobiographical treatise Confronting Silence, published a year before his death, and also Tom Service’s 2013 Guardian article, which is available here.

James, Concerts Director

At Lunch Three takes place in Norwich on Fri 19 Feb, Cambridge on Tue 23 Feb and London on Wed 24 Feb. More info here

An extended version of this programme will also be performed at Southampton's Turner Sims Concert Hall on Thu 25 Feb. More info here

Ten years of At Lunch - from the stage

In celebration of the tenth anniversary of our At Lunch concert series, we asked some of our players to share their favourite memories from the last decade of lunchtime concerts...

Joy Farrall (Principal Clarinet):

"There is real excitement in opening a brand new piece of music once a year (if not twice on occasion), knowing it is a piece written especially for your orchestra and your colleagues by an amazing establishment figure or up-and-coming young genius, and for that privilege to have been on-going for ten years is a total delight."

Clare Finnimore (Principal Viola):

"In Norwich there's always a fabulous keen and supportive audience. We can really feel that they're with us every step of the way- they're especially open and receptive to the new music. 

With the BBC broadcasts often being taken from Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall there is always an 'edge' to these lunchtime performances in more ways that one. I'll always remember the bitter cold at the beginning of the rehearsal and the howling gale coming in through the back door with the BBC wires! It's always lovely chatting to audience members here afterwards, then going to Burwash Manor Barns for tea and cake.

Wigmore Hall is such a special place holding many memories for each one of us. With the pressure of the live broadcast behind us it's great to wallow in this perfect acoustic!" 

Huw Watkins (Principal Piano):

"It's been a huge privilege to launch so many new pieces in the last 10 years of At Lunch. I'm particularly proud to have written one of the very first of these commissions in 2006, Dream, for violin, clarinet and piano. Not only was this a remarkable experience musically (working with Joy Farrall and Alina Ibragimova, who joined us for this tour) - we also took the programme to Kraków, where the food was unforgettable!"

Alina Ibragimova, Joy Farrall, Michael Zev Gordon (whose music also featured in this programme),
and David Butcher (Chief Executive) on tour in Kraków.

Miranda Dale (Principal Second Violin):

"Perhaps most of our interesting experiences have been played out before Norwich concerts, including the time when we turned up in a taxi to play at the Assembly Rooms and Jackie realised that she had left her violin on the train! On hair-tailing back in said taxi and feverishly searching the train, which luckily had not started it's return journey, she even more luckily spotted a cleaner walking down the platform with her violin on the trolley! Not much rehearsal was had before that concert, just tea and scones required!

The other famed Norwich incident was when it started snowing just after our train started out from Liverpool Street station in London - it snowed so hard and fast that our train could not cope and we limped towards Norwich having to disembark at Ipswich in order to wait on the freezing platform for another train. Phone calls were feverishly made to and fro to our colleagues and concert manager who had driven there from nearer by and as the time ticked quickly by and the concert should have started we were still on the train! Joy and David valiantly saved the day (Norwich audience as ever game) by having a pre-concert talk (only during concert time!) whilst we scrambled to the Assembly House. I seem to remember Caroline running onto the stage from the taxi and joining Huw in her stocking feet to play a sonata with him followed by our commission before jumping back in a taxi to catch our return train!"

Thomas Gould (Associate Leader):

“At Britten Sinfonia we often say that a chamber music mentality is at the core of everything we do, and the At Lunch series provides us with the chance to put our money where our mouths are! As well as providing an opportunity to interpret chamber masterworks, each programme also features a world premiere composition. We've been privileged to work with composers such as Joey Roukens, Enrico Chapela, Dobrinka Tabakova, Charlie Piper, Nico Muhly and Jay Greenberg (to name but a few) over recent years, and it has been wonderful to see their careers flourish. A particular highlight for me was the At Lunch programme that featured Argentinian bandoneonist Marcelo Nisinman in music by his compatriot Astor Piazzolla. We had a lot of fun letting our hair down and undoing a few buttons for that one!"


Don't miss At Lunch Three, featuring music for the unusual combination of flute, viola and harp by Debussy, Takemitsu and a new work by Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason - Norwich Fri 19 Feb, Cambridge Tue 23 Feb & London Wed 24 Feb. More information and booking.

Find out more about Ten Years of At Lunch.

A look back on At Lunch - James Calver

James Calver, Concerts Director, shares a fond memory from our April 2011 At Lunch concert...

Marcelo Nisinman (c) Karin van der Meul

One of my fondest Britten Sinfonia At Lunch memories was back in 2011 (in my previous role as Concerts Assistant), when Thomas Gould (violin), Huw Watkins (piano), Caroline Dearnley (cello) and Stephen Williams (double bass) performed a Piazolla-inspired programme with guest artist Marcelo Nisinman (bandoneon).  Marcelo Nisinman is internationally renowned in his field, and much in demand as a soloist playing with orchestras and at festivals around the world. He has performed with, Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Gary Burton, Fernando Suarez Paz, Assad Brothers, and the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit, and formed his own world-famous quartet ‘Tango Factory’ in 2009.

Moodily-lit, laced with thigh-slapping rhythms, percussive string techniques, and featuring a newly-written piece by Mexican composer Enrico Chapela, Nanobots, this At Lunch tour had an ‘end of term’ vibe, Britten Sinfonia doing what we do best: exploring music outside what one might normally expect to hear filling Wigmore Hall on a wet Wednesday lunchtime in April...

I turned pages for Huw, and found myself doing so with a certain uncontrollable Argentinian flare. It was that easy to become this immersed in the music and infected by the style and atmosphere, to the extent that I’ve never really felt so much a part of a performance than at this moment, particularly in the closing work of the concert: a dramatic performance of Piazolla’s Curato Estaciones Poteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), in a version close to the original written and performed by the composer himself and his quintet. It brought the house down.

At Britten Sinfonia, we’ve often adapted and expanded At Lunch programmes into full-length evening performances, this being one of those occasions.  Marking the start of a new series entitled ‘Unbuttoned’ at the newly-built APEX concert hall in Bury St. Edmunds, we gave an intimate ‘in-the-round’ cabaret-style performance of the programme with a couple of additions.  Thom Gould instructed me to “show some chest hair” when I was about to turn for the final piece…the event was Unbuttoned in every sense of the word.  

James Calver, Concerts Director

Find out more about the last ten years of At Lunch on our website, and don't forget to take part in our competition to be in with a chance of winning two tickets to an At Lunch concert this season.

Edward Nesbit - our OPUS2015 winner's story

I have had the pleasure of working with Britten Sinfonia for almost twelve months.  Back in December, the twelve composers who had been shortlisted for Britten Sinfonia’s OPUS2015 scheme enjoyed a workshop with the horn player Richard Watkins, where we discussed every aspect of the horn, from extended techniques to, if I remember correctly, the treatment of the horn in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.  

Most of us were at that stage in the middle of composing extracts of music for horn trio, all of which were workshopped by Jackie Shave, Huw Watkins and Carys Evans in January this year.  Over the course of an intense weekend, we heard what everyone had produced – which amounted to the best part of an hour of music.  It was a very interesting – and very diverse – selection of pieces, and made for a lively and fascinating couple of days.

I was delighted to be chosen as the winner, and as a result have extended my original three-minute miniature into a full-length piece.  The resulting work, Lifesize Gods, was workshopped again more recently, and following that workshop I have given it a final few tweaks in advance of the premiere.  From here on in it will be the most exciting part of the process, and, for me at least, the easiest: I can now more or less simply sit and listen to the results.

One of the interesting challenges of writing a horn trio is the small number of previously written horn trios which have entered the repertoire.  While I have come across a number of very fine horn trios while writing my own, there are only two works which have firmly entered the repertoire: those by Brahms and Ligeti.  As a composer this situation brings both advantages and disadvantages.  There are fewer models to which I might turn for inspiration – but, on the other hand, there is not the weight of history that one has to deal with when writing, say, a string quartet.

It is interesting, then, that I will be sharing a programme with another new horn trio, by Huw Watkins.  I was, as it happens, at the premiere of Huw’s Horn Trio in 2009, and vividly remember the impression it made on me then; it will be a great pleasure to have the chance to hear it again live – three times, no less!  It really is a fantastic piece, and is an important addition to the repertoire which will doubtless continue to be performed for many years to come.   Huw and I are very different composers, however, which is probably no bad thing, given that we will be appearing in the same programme.  While Huw’s piece is lyrical, contrapuntal and full of contrast, my new work is, for the most part, transparent, almost obsessively single-minded, and extremely quick.

Britten Sinfonia have generously invited me to continue my involvement in the scheme, and next week I will be working with Julian Philips to choose the ten composers who will be shortlisted for OPUS2016.  This is something very new to me, but something that I am looking forward to immensely.  A total of 287 composers have submitted applications.  It’s a daunting number, but is testament to the fantastic nature of the opportunity that Britten Sinfonia are offering – and I’m sure it will be much harder to leave people out than to find people to shortlist.

Another aspect of my involvement with  Britten Sinfonia has been being a part of Musically Gifted.  Musically Gifted is a scheme which facilitates philanthropic donations to help fund commissions.  People can donate anything from £10 to £1,000, and all donors receive rewards, from thank you cards all the way up to invitations to rehearsals and social events with performers and composer.  The issue of how to fund contemporary music is a complex one, and many composers are unable to earn anything like a living from their composition work.  Musically Gifted is an imaginative and valuable contribution towards improving this difficult situation.

Lifesize Gods is being performed at Britten Sinfonia’s At Lunch Series in St. Andrew’s Hall, Norwich, on 27 November; West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, on 1 December; and Wigmore Hall, London, on 2 December.  It promises to be a fantastic concert! 

Edward Nesbit - OPUS2015 winner

Click here for more details and booking for At Lunch One, which features Edward's new work, Lifesize Gods.

Anna Clyne on composition

In January 2016 Britten Sinfonia premiere a new work by Anna Clyne, commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and Wigmore Hall with support from the Britten-Pears Foundation, for our 10th anniversary At Lunch series. Anna is one of the composers you can support through the Musically Gifted campaign. Find out more about Anna in this blog post as she answers questions about herself and her music...


What’s your earliest musical memory?
My earliest musical memory is hearing my mother signing nursery rhymes. My first deeply moving experience of a live concert was hearing Nigel Kennedy perform Beethoven’s Violin concerto.

What do you like most about composing?
It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet and collaborate with other artists, and to get lost in one’s imagination.

What inspires you?
I find inspiration in a myriad of things – it’s different for each piece – it could be a choreographer, an artist, an image, or a simple melody. I’m about to start work on a new piece for one hundred cellos, so for that piece it will be the very unique sonority, and how the lines interact, that will inspire the piece.

What advice would you give to aspiring composers?
Stick with it! A career in music takes time – it’s still very much a grass roots trajectory, building relationships with musicians, composers, conductors, artists and ensembles. Work closely with friends who are musicians to learn the intricacies of writing for those instruments, find like-minded artists, take risks in your music, and reach out to other artists that inspire you.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?
When I’ve finished a day’s work of composing, I like to blast something completely different to cleanse the ears – something upbeat, and often with lyrics so that I can sing along whilst I’m closing up shop. Fitting the bill have been Lily Allen and Mae West, or if I’m after something a little calmer, I’ll call upon Nat King Cole or Nina Simone.

If you turned your iPod on now, what would be playing?
My musical appetite is all over the map, but most recently I listened to Roomful of Teeth – I’m finishing up a new piece for them and have been listening to their latest album to find inspiration in their unique sound. I’ve also been listening to vocal music by other artists/composers such as Trio Mediaeval, Clarice Assad, Purcell and Bernstein.

The last concert you saw?
Last weekend, I heard two totally different, but totally wonderful concerts – the Baltimore Symphony performing Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with soloist Olga Kern, Strauss’ Alpine Symphony and the East Coast premiere of short piece of mine, Masquerade, under the direction of Marin Alsop – followed the next day by Tree of Codes with music by Jamie XX, choreography by Wayne McGregor and visuals by Olafur Eliasson in New York.

If you hadn’t been a musician, what might have happened?
I’ve always had a wide range of interests. If music weren’t an option I would have loved to study more languages and if I had a completely different skillset, I would have loved to become an astrophysicist. 

Which musical instrument do you wish you could play, and why?
I’m a rusty cellist, but I wish I could play the fiddle well. There’s something about folk music that I’ve always loved – from Scottish tunes heard during my time at Edinburgh University to old-time music and the blues in Chicago. It would be great to be able to pick it up and play. And it’s so much more portable than a cello!



Anna's new work will be premiered during our At Lunch series in January and will feature soprano Julia Doyle. Performances take place at Norwich's St Andrew's Hall on Friday 15 January, Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall on Tuesday 19th January and London's Wigmore Hall on Wednesday 20th January. Click here for more info and to book tickets.



This Lunar Beauty by Anna Clyne has been commissioned with support from the Britten-Pears Foundation.

Edward Nesbit on compostion

Edward Nesbit won Britten Sinfonia's OPUS2015 competition for unpublished composers. His new Horn Trio, Lifesize Gods, commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and Wigmore Hall, as a result of winning OPUS2015 will be premiered during the At Lunch 1 tour on Friday 27 November in Norwich with further performances in Cambridge (1 Dec) and at London's Wigmore Hall (2 Dec). In this blog post Edward answers a few questions about his work and life.

How would you summarise yourself in one sentence?
I like music.

What do you like most about composing?
The excitement of it: to get to the end of a day’s work and think ‘that passage of music didn’t exist this morning’ is a real thrill. Especially when things are going quickly, and I am pleased with and even surprised by what I am writing, this feeling can be one of the most exciting things I have ever experienced.

How do you start a new work?
This varies hugely from piece to piece.

Occasionally I know what the title of a piece will be before I start writing, and this can help to clarify my ideas hugely. I have, for example, recently been working on a piece called Like Some Forgotten Music, which is a quotation from Anne Enright’s novel The Forgotten Waltz. It is a phrase I find extremely evocative, and that has shaped the rather archaic sound-world of the piece.

Sometimes I sit down to start a piece with no pre-conceptions at all, and I just see what happens. Sometimes this leads to disaster and I have to scrap what I have written and start again multiple times; sometimes, however, this approach can lead to the most interesting results, and I produce work which I could never have imagined in the abstract.

Before I started Lifesize Gods, my horn trio for Britten Sinfonia, I knew that everything I wrote would be repeated – literally every phrase has repeat marks around it. This semi-arbitrary restriction has far-reaching implications for the syntax and structure of the piece: nothing can ever be a surprise, for example, as the second time that material appears it would cease to be surprising. I quite commonly employ this kind of procedure to help get me started with a piece, and to help me push my imagination in new directions.

Sharps or flats?
Actually, I’m pretty keen on white notes.

Tea or coffee?
Strong black coffee. A lot of it.

What and/or who inspires you?
It’s always listening to music for me. Composing is a very abstract and cerebral activity – after all, you don’t actually hear a note of what you’ve written until after you’ve finished the piece! This is a very odd situation in some ways, I find that the extreme disconnect between what I spend my days doing and what I am ultimately trying to achieve can occasionally be disheartening. In this situation, listening to music I love – above all, Sibelius – reminds me what is possible for music to do, and that all the hours of hard work are worth it.

What’s your advice for budding composers, or anyone considering entering OPUS2016?
Work tirelessly at honing your craft – and I use the word ‘craft’ deliberately – and never be satisfied with what you have written.

What would you like to be recognised for?
Although, of course, having a ‘big’ career would be nice, I’m really not driven by recognition at all, and it is the profound satisfaction of being proud of a piece of music I have written which drives me. Having said that, I do hope that I have something individual to say musically, and I would like that to be shared with as many people as possible.

Any embarrassing music-related moments?
No comment! I do, however, have an irrational fear of misreading the details of the ensemble for which I’ve been asked to write and submitting a piece written for the wrong instruments. That would be pretty embarrassing…

The last concert you saw?
Carolin Widmann giving the world premiere of Julian Anderson’s poem for violin and orchestra In Liebliche Bläue with the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall. An amazing piece and performance!

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?
Rachmaninov.

If you turned your iPod on now, what would be playing?
Schnee by Hans Abrahamsen.

If you hadn’t been a musician…?
I’d love to have been a novelist. I love composing due to the joy I feel at creating things, and I’m pretty sure that writing novels would give me the same satisfaction – although I’m less sure that anyone would want to read my books!

The best gift you’ve received?
I love being given books across which I haven’t come before, and being directed towards reading material which it wouldn’t have occurred to me to read.

Is there anything else you want to share with the world?
As a composer who is interested in literature, my biggest dream is to write opera. I always have ideas for operas floating around in my head, and I hope to have the chance to write one as soon as possible!


You can help support the development of Edward Nesbit's new work, Lifesize Gods, through Britten Sinfonia's Musically Gifted campaign. Click here for more details.

For full details of the world premiere tour of Edward's Horn Trio click here.

Are you an unpublished composer living in the UK? Why not apply for OPUS2016? Click here for full details.

Joey Roukens on composition

Composer Joey Roukens is writing a new work for Britten Sinfonia, which will be premiered on Wednesday 4 March 2015 in London's Wigmore Hall followed by performances in Cambridge and Norwich as part of our At Lunch 4 programme. Joey is one of the composers you can support through the Musically Gifted campaign. Find out more about Joey in this blog post as he answers questions about himself and his music...

How would you summarise yourself in one sentence?

I'm a composer with an eclectic (yet hopefully distinctive) musical language embracing the great diversity of styles and genres that make up our current musical age.

What’s your earliest musical memory?

Probably listening to my father’s vinyl records: mostly crooners, country and folk music. But I also remember a record of songs played by a Dutch street organist, which I was very fond of.

What do you like most about composing?

What I like most is when you stumble upon an idea that seems brilliant and you think this is going to be the masterpiece you’ve always wanted to write… only to realize the next day that the idea is not that brilliant after all and the piece you’re working on is definitely not going to be a masterpiece. For the most part, it’s not fun to compose: it’s an agony – 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration!

What inspires you?

Anything can be a source of inspiration – a good movie, a museum, a night club, etc. But what inspires me most is other music. When I hear music that really moves or excites me I get inspired to write my own.

When was the last time you experienced writers’ block, and how did you move on from it?

With each piece, I go through a stage of writers’ block, sometimes it lasts only a day, other times it can last many weeks or even months. Frustratingly, there’s not much you can do about it; it’s part of the creative process. What works best for me is to just accept it and take a break.

How do you feel about new music and what we’re trying to do with Musically Gifted?

In these times of arts cuts it is very important that projects such as Musically Gifted exist to make alternative financing of new music commissions possible. Musically Gifted is a wonderful initiative I can only applaud. New music that’s being written today must be performed today, for it has something to communicate to the audience of today.

What would you like to be recognised for?

Frankly, I don’t care. I just write the music I want to write and as long as there are listeners out there who think my music is worthwhile, I am happy.

What advice would you give to other composers?

I don’t think I’m in the position to advise other composers, but if I had to advise younger, aspiring composers, I’d say: Be open to the whole gamut of styles, genres and sources that the current musical culture has to offer. Embrace everything, question everything and write only what you want to write, even if you think you shouldn’t write it.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

I’ve got plenty: the lush film scores of John Williams and Morricone, Strauss waltzes, Bacharach songs, new agey ambient music, at times I can even enjoy a bit of Einaudi.

If you turned your iPod on now, what would be playing?

That could be anything from Renaissance vocal music to the new Aphex Twin album.

  

Favourite five tracks of all time?

That’s difficult to say because I have so many favourites, plus, they change all the time. So let me just give you my favourite composers. As of now, they are (in no particular order): Bach, Mahler, Mozart, Sibelius, Stravinsky.

The last concert you saw?

A concert with orchestral works by Dutch composers, including a piece by me, about a month ago.

If you hadn’t been a musician, what might have happened?

Either I would have become a researcher in cognitive psychology (in fact, I studied psychology at university, as well as music composition), or I would have ended up a tramp.

Which musical instrument do you wish you could play, and why?

The violin. Because of the enormous emotional range it is capable of expressing.

Is there anything else you want to share with the world?

No, enough said, just listen to my music!

Joey's new work will be premiered in March 2014 as part of our At Lunch 4 programme, which also features works by Lou Harrison and Shostakovich.

You can find out more about Joey's music by listening to some tracks on his website.

Patrick John Jones on Composition

A new work by Patrick John Jones opens Britten Sinfonia's 2014-15 At Lunch series which sees performances in Cambridge, Norwich and at London's Wigmore Hall in November and December 2014. Patrick won OPUS2014 our open submission competition for unpublished composers and is on the roster of Musically Gifted composers you could help support. In this blog Patrick answers questions about himself and his music.


How would you summarise yourself in one sentence?
Imagine a cross between a less good-looking Jarvis Cocker (minus the singing ability), a better-looking T.S. Eliot (minus the way with words), and a less funny Simon Amstell (minus the big curly hair).

That may or may not be almost, but not quite, entirely unlike me.

What do you like most about music and composing?
One of the most enjoyable parts of composing is when the ideas for a piece gather momentum and I can lose myself in shaping and refining the sound world that I am trying to create. Similarly, the music I like has a compelling power that can completely absorb my attention. I live for the moments when my mind is engaged with that kind of intensity.

What inspires you?
Original, potent ideas that are realised with passion and dedication. (This can apply to anything that involves human creativity, not just music.)

How do you feel about new music and what we’re trying to do with Musically Gifted?
About new music: optimistic. One thing I am particularly excited by is the fact that we have almost immediate access to a profusion of different kinds of music. It makes it so easy to ignore any canon that is thrust at you, and allows the creation of your own canon of music and musical figures that are important to you. That can only be a good thing for creativity.

However, there is such an overwhelming amount being written now that it is impossible to keep up, and I am more interested in pursuing music that is new to me rather than staying on top of what is current. Every so often, though, I will hear something I think is really special in this vast mass of creative activity, and that is where my optimism comes from.

Ultimately, it is extremely important to allow composers to keep trying, and I’m very glad Britten Sinfonia is playing a part in that.

What was your reaction when Britten Sinfonia commissioned you?
Delighted! It was amazing to hear Britten Sinfonia's wind players so deftly tackle the scores given to them at the OPUS2014 workshop, and I’m really looking forward to working with them more.

What would you like to be recognised for?
Ideally: original, potent ideas that are realised with passion and dedication. Or streaking at a major sporting event.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?
I like what I like unashamedly, as should everyone.

If you turned your iPod on now, what would be playing?
Currently the Bach Brandenburgs, played by Il Giardino Armonico. At the moment I keep obsessively coming back to the middle movement of number six.

At the end of a long day, how do you relax?
My mind can be very hyperactive after a long day, so I’ll often be in bed listening to something on headphones that will help clear my head before going to sleep. Perhaps some music with a mesmeric quality or an audiobook. I usually have a novel on the go too, as it's easy for my ears to get fatigued if I've been working on music all day.

If you hadn’t been a musician, what might have happened?
If my seven-year-old self had his way, I’d be a paleontologist. But because my close family is exclusively comprised of literature nerds, I’d probably be attempting to write a novel or an English thesis right now. Or clandestinely googling TEFL courses whilst working a nine-to-five.

Is there anything else you want to share with the world?
A pot of tea. Or two. Maybe a vat.


Patrick is writing a piece for wind quintet which will be premiered during our At Lunch 1 tour on Friday 28 November at St Andrew's Hall, Norwich, Tuesday 2 December at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge and Wednesday 3 December at Wigmore Hall, London. Click here for more information and booking details

You can support Patrick John Jones new work via Musically Gifted. Click here for more information.

Submissions for OPUS2015 are now open - click here to find out more.

Nikola White on Kaija Saariaho

In this blog post Britten Sinfonia's Artistic Planning Director, Nikola White, discusses how we came to commission Kaija Saariaho for our 2014-15 At Lunch series and her thoughts on the composer's style;

Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho has been on our wish-list of composers to commission for a long time and is the first Scandinavian composer we have commissioned. Scandinavia is such a power-house of cultural excellence, with the likes of Magnus Lindberg, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Pekka Kuusisto all making a huge impact in the music world. I find Kaija particularly interesting as she’s a Finnish francophone; she went to study in Paris at IRCAM and has lived in the city since 1982.

When creating the programme for our At Lunch concerts, we are aiming to present a series that provides a good balance of both established and new talent, plus a breadth of compositional styles and instrumentation. Kaija’s music is all about the sound she is creating – I understand that when she was a little girl, at bedtime she used to hear very distinctive music "coming out of her pillow" – I love the idea of this – and apparently she used to ask her mother to "turn the pillow off"!
 

We’re delighted to have the opportunity of presenting her new piano trio in January 2015 and also, whilst not at all imperative, it is very welcome to have a female voice in the programming mix – I know that Kaija has been largely disappointed by the difficulties that female composers and conductors sometimes still face, and is saddened by the lack of progress in this area.

In many of her earlier compositions she has made use of electronics (such as Verblendungen, 1984) and created a sound-world full of colour and texture. It's interesting to see that in some of her more recent pieces (such as Laterna Magica, 2008), that don't use any electronics, she still manages to create blurry lines between textures that convey almost similar effects. And her opera, L'amour de Loin (2000) has lushly beautiful moments juxtaposed with acidic dissonances, whilst still retaining a musical consonance.

Although she has written for large forces where the colours she creates are overwhelmingly beautiful (such as Du Cristal, 1989), I find her chamber and solo works equally exhibit a fascinating array of colours. I also like the fact that she often writes specifically for artists who she knows and I think her admiration for them comes across in her musical expression, such as the flute pieces she has written for Camilla Hoitenga, and the cello works for Annsi Karttunen. Given that our At Lunch programmes are very much focussed on the individual principal players, and tend to exhibit a very collaborative process, I am sure that Kaija will enjoy this aspect of the commission.

Nikola White
Artistic Planning Director

Kaija’s Piano Trio features alongside her Nocturne for solo violin in our At Lunch 2 concerts in London, Cambridge and Norwich in January 2015. Click here for full information.

Help commission Kaija’s new piece via the Musically Gifted scheme. From as little as £10 you will receive many benefits including your name in the score and updates on the evolution of the piece.

Schubert and Schumann

Our At Lunch 2 concerts featuring Roderick Williams and Britten Sinfonia Voices focus on the part songs of Schubert and Schumann. SinfoniaStudent, Anna Kaye explores both composers in this fascinating article;

Schubert and Schumann are composers that I first encountered quite late in my musical education. I was sixteen before I played the cello line of the Unfinished Symphony, and I still have only listened to much of Schumann’s lieder where I have sung many of the other major composers of the mid-Romantic period. As I reflected on this, I was initially frustrated by the fact that such wonderful music was absent from my repertoire for so long. But it is in reflection that I understand that this was perhaps a good thing.

Schubert was the epitome of the tortured artist. It is estimated that in his lifetime that only 10% of his works were actually performed. Despite this, Schubert lent respectability to song as a form that would not have been seen before. He changed the public’s perception of song as a genre, and this change was no less momentous for being posthumous. Lieder was the field of the amateur composer, of the homespun musician, and of the inexpert singer. Part songs were equally trivial, being composed to suit the requests of whichever choir performed them. Schubert took these genres and transformed them into something that required skill, and more importantly, taste, on the part of the performers. One need only listen to a substandard performance of Du Bist die Ruh to see that it highlights, rather than masks, the weaknesses of the singer - and, to a lesser extent, the accompanist. The part songs are no less forgiving for the singers. The favour of high tenor lines seems to have been founded in Schubert’s early life working with the boys’ choir of the Imperial Chapel, and the combinations of soloist and chorus, accompanied and unaccompanied, are certainly reminiscent of the demands and abilities of a group which fluctuated between boys’ and men’s voices.

Schubert tended to follow an instinct that allowed music to flow from his pen, and wrote very little literature for such a prolific composer of music. Robert Schumann was, first and foremost, a writer. His On Music and Musicians continues to provide some of the definitive reviews of music that we musicians value today. There is a particularly well-thumbed edition from my college library that has made the near-permanent move to my room as I continue to review it, much to the chagrin of the four other music students at my college. But it is not necessarily musical interest that drives me to return to Schumann again and again. It is the simple joy of reading such eloquent and expressive writing. Certainly, one cannot deny that Schumann is a skilled composer. Mondnacht, which Roderick will be singing in At Lunch 2, is a fantastic piece of music and one of the best examples of Schumann’s strophic song. But, in my opinion, it is the poetry that flowed from Schumann that is what elevates him above Schubert in the composition of song. In the words of the composer himself:

“People who are unfamiliar with the most significant manifestations of recent literature are considered uncultured. The same should apply to music.”

Schumann believed that the piano had a voice independent and equal to the singer. He was not entirely trusting of the singer and their ability, but his faith in the abilities of the piano is all too clear, not only in his song but in his solo piano compositions such as Traumerei, one of the greatest and most popular piano pieces ever written, so much so that it features heavily in one of my favourite novels - Jilly Cooper’s Appasionata. Make of that what you will.

Schumann and Schubert were complex people and both their lives ended in tragedy - Schumann’s in an asylum, and Schubert’s taken by syphilis. However, their vocal music transcends these unhappy circumstances to lift up the listener to a calmer, higher place. Schubert, particularly, was adamant that the purpose of music was to raise the listener “closer to God”. It is indeed complex music but it is also music that is returned to again and again - much like my borrowed copy of On Music and Musicians.

The reason I am glad that I didn’t attempt to perform the work of these composers until later in my life, and the reason I am glad I have yet to perform the majority of them, is because the performance of their works requires great tenacity in one’s technique and a superior judgment that leads the performer away from self-indulgence. I possessed neither of these when I was younger, and it will be a while yet before I will feel secure in performing a song cycle like Winterreise. It is a excellent thing then, that those attending At Lunch 2, will have the pleasure of hearing performers like Roderick Williams and Britten Sinfonia Voices, whose judgment and taste I trust implicitly.

Anna Kaye
Britten Sinfonia, SinfoniaStudent

At Lunch 2 performances take place on Wednesday 5 February 2014 at London's Wigmore Hall, Sunday 9 February 2014 at Saffron Walden's Saffron Hall and on Tuesday 11 February at Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall. Click here for more details.

Click here to find out more about SinfoniaStudents

Roderick Williams - The Composer

Britten Sinfonia’s Development Assistant, Gabrielle Deschamps talked to esteemed baritone Roderick Williams about his second discipline, composing, and his views on new music.

Please summarise yourself in one sentence:
I’m Roderick Williams, I’m probably better known as a singer than I am as a composer, and I am an operatic baritone, recitalist, and sometime composer.

What do you like about music and singing?
The thing about singing is that you get to take part directly in the music, there’s no instrument, there’s no interface. It’s just something that you do when you’re alone in the bath or in the shower… Singing is primal in that way. And I really enjoy the physical feeling it gives me. And when I’m performing with other people I enjoy the communication part of it too. I enjoy being able to see an immediate effect in people’s eyes as I am telling a story, or whatever it is I happen to be doing.

What inspires you?
I’m inspired, I think, by fantastic music – of course one is bombarded with music all the time. Whether I’m in rehearsals or just driving in the car with the radio on, there’s always music coming at me and I find a great deal of it inspiring. I find also less good music inspiring, because that makes me want to compose. I hear something and I think “Oh I could do better than that, or I’ll have a go at that”! And equally I find performing and listening to masterworks a little intimidating and I wonder how I could ever follow in the steps of such masterworks… But at least I try!

What are your feelings about new music and what we’re trying to do with Musically Gifted?
I perform a great deal of new music. Some of it I find very exciting, some of it has a reaction with an audience that I hadn’t imagined. Sometimes I can underestimate a piece or a composer’s power. This is the composer’s part of me, with my composer’s hat on - I can sometimes look at a piece and think it doesn’t amount to much and be unaware than when it comes to the performance, it really has muscle. So I’ve learned quite a bit from that.

As for the Musically Gifted scheme, having performed so many premieres, either of songs or maybe even taking part in operas, it’s always exciting for me to have my name as the first performer on the score. It’s a little moment of pride for me there, having my name written down. In the same way that I perform some masterworks from the last fifty to a hundred years, I see the names of previous baritones and I love to think that I’m part of that line. And so it is with dedications, you see a piece that’s been commissioned by a huge symphony orchestra paid for by some huge corporation and then there’s a dedication at the top of the score that might be something very special and personal, and maybe isn’t immediately apparent when you first look at the score. They all have stories and that’s quite intriguing. And you often see in programme notes the story explained of who “Bill” happens to be… There’s something quite romantic about dedications, and when I get a chance to dedicate my own pieces I also send little messages to people; little votes of thanks here and there.

Is composing something that you want to be more recognised for?
It’s a little difficult because I think a lot of composers have an eye on immortality and I wouldn’t begin to imagine that my music would be anything more than functional in a way. And if it achieves anything beyond my time that’s all well and good, but I’ve got my eyes on the moment, as a performer. I like my music to get an airing rather than writing huge numbers of string quartets and symphonies that I store in a cupboard to be discovered on my death and then for me to reign supreme. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen! So I’m very interested in the way performers shape pieces, and part of the way I write now is I allow a performer a great deal of input into my music and how it should go, in the hope that each performance is different and in the hope that performers can take my music and make it their own. So I don’t prescribe utterly how it should go, with exact markings on how every millisecond should sound because I think you might as well present people with a definite recording and say “that is it, set in stone”. I think that’s a shame.
It would be lovely to be known as anything actually! My mum knows who I am…

What was your reaction when Britten Sinfonia commissioned you?
Commissions are always very exciting because it shows that someone somewhere has really listened and enjoyed something that I’ve done, and found it worthy. With my singing career, I’m happy to take criticism, good or bad, I feel reasonably confident that I know what I’m doing. Now, in composition it’s entirely separate, and it’s much more like my own baby, my own child, and I am much more worried about reaction to it and people’s perception of it - desperate for encouragement. So just the fact that, not just anybody but an orchestra that has as much pedigree in modern music as Britten Sinfonia, should want to commission me, I find terribly exciting.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?
I love harmony. Harmony really inspires me, I particularly love jazz harmonies. I enjoy jazz and pop. I love having the radio on and just not knowing what’s going to come up next. And I’m as likely to be moved to tears by a bit of Marvin Gay as I am by a bit of Mahler. So I don’t know if that’s guilt or not but whatever sort of music it is, if it speaks to me, it goes deep.

How do you relax?
The thing that helps me relax a lot is walking. The tricky thing for me is that there’s always going to be some sort of music playing in my head. This German idea of the Ohrwurm – the piece of music that just keeps going round and round. The worst thing is that it’s quite likely to be a really naff tune that gets stuck in there. This is why I often have the radio on. Radio 4 so that people can talk to me, or music that I’m not in control of; someone else’s playlist going round. But the idea of getting outside and walking in nature, I love that! That’s how I relax. Wherever I am in the world, if I can, I get the chance to get out of my hotel, out of the arts centre, and get out into the hills – that’s what I love doing.

If you hadn’t been a musician, what might have happened?
That’s a very difficult question to answer because in a previous life I was a music teacher before I started my career as a singer, but it still has the word music in it. So if I’d just been a teacher I don’t know what I would have taught.

Any other passions?
That I could turn into a job?! You see the problem with that is that everything I do at the moment I do because I really enjoy it, and the fact that people are happy to pay me for it is a wonderful bonus. But if you ask me what I’d be doing if it wasn’t for music and it was a profession, then I’m a bit stuck! No – when my career is over I’ll come back to you and answer that one!

Is there anything else you want to share with the world? About you, music, politics or anything?
What’s in my heart that I’d like the world to know? That is tricky. I think the easiest way to answer that is sort of an advert, because the best way to get an answer to that is to listen to my music, or if not that you should listen to me singing other people’s music. Because I can’t give an answer to that question without sounding glib. The only way I can do that is musically, that’s the only realm where I’m comfortable to answer that question!

You can help commission Roderick William’s new work through the Musically Gifted campaign. Click here for more information.

Roderick Williams’ new work will be performed in the following At Lunch 2 concerts in 2014:

NORWICH – Assembly House - 31 January
LONDON – Wigmore Hall - 5 February at Wigmore Hall
SAFFRON WALDEN – Saffron Hall - 9 February
CAMBRIDGE – West Road Concert Hall - 11 February

Click here for more information, and keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter pages for an announcement of the name of the new work.

This blog is a transcript of an interview by Gabrielle Deschamps (Britten Sinfonia Development Assitant) with Roderick Williams

Sally Beamish on composition

The Britten Sinfonia At Lunch series begins in December with At Lunch 1 and in addition to works by Mozart, Lutosławski and Fauré, we will hear a new work from Sally Beamish, co-commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and Wigmore Hall. We talk to Sally about what it’s like to be a composer and where she gets her inspiration from.


Please describe yourself in one sentence.
I’m a composer living in Scotland and I was a viola player for ten years in London but have always composed since I was 4 years old.

You were a performing musician and became a composer, tell us more…
I’ve always written music, since before I learned to read and write. My mother taught me to read and write music when I was 4 and in fact when I started piano lessons a year later I was quite indignant to have someone else’s music put in front of me so I wrote my own piano book ‘How to play the piano’. I felt that playing was terribly important as well and I studied the viola and managed to get into playing contemporary music in London. By doing that, I met a lot of composers who were working for groups like the London Sinfonietta and they helped me with scores which was fantastic. I think that’s something that’s always informed my music; I’m very aware of how it feels to play a new piece and the first reaction on seeing the notes on the page. Writing for strings is something that I understand from the inside so I’m very excited to be doing this piece.

What can you tell us about the piece you are writing for Britten Sinfonia?
Writing a piece for string trio is the bare bones of string writing. Like three legs is the minimum for a chair to stand up. You need those three parts, the top, middle and bottom. What tends to happen is that the viola player ends up almost playing two parts. If you look at Beethoven’s string trio, for instance, the viola part is really quite complex, holding it together from the inside.

As you are a violist yourself, do you find you write differently for that instrument?
I don’t think I’m consciously aware of writing differently for the viola, but I often do find that at significant points in the score I’ve given a solo to the viola, or I’ve written something for the viola section, I might open a piece with the viola. I’m not actually conscious of doing that but I think it is a special voice for me.

What inspires you?
I’m often inspired by extra-musical ideas so for instance landscape, words or maybe a poem. My violin concerto is based on ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, a First World War novel and often paintings and dance have come into my music. Also, what I find very inspiring is other types of music, and living in Scotland has very often influenced my music because the culture of Scottish music is so strong and you’re so aware of it all the time.

Please tell us more about music in Scotland.
The first thing I noticed when I moved to Scotland is how strong the culture is, you’re surrounded by Scottish music in a way that I was never aware of in England. It’s a living form in Scotland. It’s quite cool for a teenager to go to a ceilidh for instance. Everyone’s there and it’s not something that defines your age at all. The forms of Scottish music are very strong as well and instantly recognisable and a very good basis. The variation form pibroch with the Scottish bagpipes is something I’ve used a lot in my work.

Does knowing the musician who will perform your piece affect your writing at all?
It’s great to know the players beforehand because then I immediately have their individual sound in my head. For instance, I’ve known Jackie Shave’s playing for years and years and years, and immediately I start to hear her playing when I start thinking about the piece I think of Jackie playing the piece. So that’s very exciting and very inspiring.

If you hadn’t been a musician and composer, what would you have been?
I don’t remember a time when composing wasn’t what I was going to do, but I do a lot of other things as well. I write short stories and poems and I’ve learned a lot from going to writers groups. Showing a poem to a group of people immediately generates lots of ideas because everyone feels comfortable with words. Whereas as a composer it’s much more difficult because you can’t really show your work to anyone in the same way until it’s in front of the players and then it’s too late to change it. So it’s quite an isolated way to work. I paint as well, and when I’m starting a new piece of music I very often think in terms of making a pencil sketch or an architect’s drawing of the shape of the piece before I start to colour it. Those sort of parallels are quite helpful.

What is your musical guilty pleasure?
I’m interested in all sorts of music, my sons are both involved in rock and pop music and we’ve done some projects together. I have huge admiration for those genres because the creators of it use their ears so much and everything is so immediate. That’s helped me a lot in my own workings out because as a classical composer you spend a lot of time looking at a page and working your systems out and actually just to let go of that and to improvise is a wonderful feeling.

Who would you like to work with?
I’ve been working a lot with Brandford Marsalis, a jazz saxophone player, and I’ve learned a lot from him and his way of working. And he also works with my classical music, so he’s played two of my saxophone concertos, which he calls songs, which I think is lovely!

What do you want to achieve within the next five years?
The thing that I’ve always wanted to do is to write for dance, and that’s something that hasn’t really happened until just recently. I was commissioned to write a ballet for the Birmingham Royal Ballet so that’s something I’ll be doing in 2016 and I’m looking forward to that hugely. I think all the music I write up to then is likely to be related to that feeling of dance. So I think the string trio will definitely be something that links in with that beginning to think about movement and drama as well.

On Commissioning
I think it’s fantastic that Britten Sinfonia has such a lively approach to commissioning new music through it's Musically Gifted programme. Of course, new music has to be part of the musical spectrum; the composers of today are the classics of tomorrow. As a composer, the more that you’re given to work with, the less scary it is. If a commissioner comes to you with an idea that’s a real challenge it’s very inspiring.

On New Music
It’s always nice when there’s something new in a concert, I’d always be more inclined to go to a concert if there’s a new piece. After all, 200 years ago people more or less only heard new music. They would go to concerts and hear the latest thing that had been written. Maybe it was The Magic Flute, and that would be the pantomime to take the kids to. We go to the latest music theatre piece, but with classical music there’s a little reticence from audiences that they may not understand. But actually I think that you can hugely engage with a new piece of music. Young people in particular seem to engage more readily with new music than perhaps they might do with Eine Kleine Nacht Musik where it doesn’t speak to them directly.

At Lunch 1 takes place on 11 December at Wigmore Hall, on 13 December at the Assembly House, Norwich and on 17 December in West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge. For more information and to book tickets, click here.

For more information on Britten Sinfonia's Musically Gifted campaign click here

This blog is a transcript of an interview by Gabrielle Deschamps (Britten Sinfonia Development Assitant) with Sally Beamish.