A Concerto Grosso named Salmigondis - Ken Hesketh

Later this month the young musicians of Britten Sinfonia Academy will give the first performance of Concerto Salmigondis as part of At Lunch Five. Ahead of the premiere, we asked composer Ken Hesketh to share his experience of writing this work, which was also inspired by Handel manuscripts from the Fitzwilliam Museum, for the young ensemble...


Writing for a young group, without conductor, using the music or some aspect of George Frideric
Handel (to be found in the marvellous Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge) is not the type of
commission that comes across my work desk every day, or even every year. Don't get me wrong - it intrigued me and the unforeseen is certainly a good thing, at least musically. Thus, I accepted the commission.

My work is (far more often than not) rhythmically agile and turbulent, usually rapid in harmonic
change and generally quite tricky to pull off. I like it that way. However, I also like working with
younger players, especially those who have technical facility and musically open minds. The brief
necessarily challenged my usual way of working and so this particular commission became an enjoyable conundrum that needed to be solved and one that in doing so sharpened my lateral thinking skills. There are various approaches I could have pursued - graphic score, some form of aleatoricism, some sort of post-minimal knitting music (rhythmically repetitive to get around the no-conductor stipulation). The list of options could go on as you might imagine. However, the Handelian requirement of the brief gave me a clue as to how to proceed.

During the workshops with Britten Sinfonia Academy, led by the wonderful Rachel Byrt and
Christopher Suckling, I was able to indulge my early joy of the music of Handel, specifically from my years as a chorister and as a young school boy. One of my first Dover edition scores was the Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, or Twelve Grand Concertos, HWV 319–330, by Handel. The other was the complete Brandenburg Concerti. Both are now discoloured with age and show signs of early dog-earing. Being able to peruse the delicacies and riches of the Fitz Handeliana collection (thanks to Rachel Sinfield and Dr Suzanne Reynolds at the Fitzwilliam Museum for such access) was a real joy, particularly in the company of Rachel and Christopher. Seeing the young performers from BSA enjoying their exploration of the collection was a delight. The introduction by Dr. Suckling to various aspects of Handel's music, life and times really enthralled the young players and in the process suggested a way for me to combine aspects of the collection in my own new piece. Amid the manuscripts on display during the workshop was a carillon part from the final chorus of Part 1 of L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (an ode by Handel based on the poetry of John Milton) titled "Or let the merry bells ring round". In my correspondence with Dr. Suckling regarding the carillon part, he sent me the following rather splendid quotation from Charles Jennens to Lord Guernsey, 19 September 1738:

"Mr Handel’s head is more full of Maggots [an 18th century term for an earworm] than ever. I found yesterday in his room a very queer Instrument which He calls Carillon (Anglice a Bell,) and says some call it a Tubalcain, I suppose because it is both in the make and tone like a set of Hammers striking upon Anvils. ’Tis play’d upon with Keys like a Harpsichord, and with this Cyclopean Instrument he designs to make poor Saul stark mad."

Look up TubalCain in the bible (Genesis 4:22) by the way (and Jubalcain if you have a few minutes after that).

The carillon part itself seems to be transposed by a perfect fifth (it sounds in D, but is notated in G). I therefore chose to put a quotation from this part in G (though the surrounding texture of my work is anything but G, D or anything else). There is speculation, according to Dr. Suckling, that Handel's carillon "had thick bars to sound like [an] anvil with pitch higher than written notes (for metal bar free at both ends, thicker bar = higher pitch)".

The one extra-musical element present in my work comes from a painting, "The Charming Brute" - a caricature by the French engraver, painter and set designer Joseph Goupy of Handel (dated 1754) - which also resides at the Fitzwilliam museum and suggested the title for one of the movements of the Concerto. The story behind this painting is fascinating and there is a recounting of it in the Monthly Epitome and Catalogue of New Publications, Volume 2, Jan to Dec 1798 (reproduced below):

An interesting insight to Handel’s culinary generosity!

In order to bring these elements together I chose a musical form called the pasticcio (literally pasty in Italian); a musical work built from an adaptation of an existing work (or works). Handel worked with the pasticcio form throughout his life, for example in Muzio Scevola (1721) and Giove in Argo (1739). My work for BSA, Concerto Salmigondis, utilises this form. The word salmigondis is a synonym for pasticcio (salmigondis is a French word meaning a disparate assembly of things). Loosely based on the Concerto Grosso form, similar to those found in the Op. 6 concerti, it is in five sections - Intrada, Lento, Leggiero – The Charming Brute, Musette and Hop Jig. The antique titles and forms of the movements have been freely interpreted and, if one is frank, resulted in a neoclassicisation of my style for this particular work. The concept of the concertino and ripieno groups from the Concerto Grosso form is utilized (mostly formed of principle strings and harpsichord, but also, in the ‘Brute’ movement, of various groups of flutes, oboes and brass); the carillon part from the Fitz Handeliana collection also peeks through textures in various forms in the third movement. Four of the five movements are based on music written when I was about the age of the average BSA member (the 'Brute’ movement has no antecedent). The reworking of the originals includes extensions and recastings as well as the imposition of various episodes for the concertino groups on the extant materials’ formal arcs. This frequently meant taking the originals down very different compositional routes allowing me to have a great deal of fun in the process.

After hearing a rehearsal of the completed work for the first time with BSA I was convinced I had
fulfilled the brief. I had enjoyed doing so, and it was clear - wonderfully clear - that BSA really
enjoyed what I had written. When that happens it's a wonderful feeling as you might imagine. Being able to cut one’s musical cloth accordingly and to quickly commit to a project outside of the everyday was something Handel was pretty good at. I greatly enjoyed doing likewise, just for a moment, and in the process communicated, interacted and responded to the wider musical world in a way that usually evades me.

Ken Hesketh (composer)

Concerto Salmigondis will be performed by Britten Sinfonia Academy as part of At Lunch Five. Tickets are still available for both performances, in Norwich's St Andrew's Hall on Thursday 30 June, 1pm (tickets), and in Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall on Friday 1 July, 1pm (tickets). More information can also be found on our website.

Jacqueline Shave - celebrating 10 years as Britten Sinfonia Leader

This April we celebrate Jacqueline Shave's first ten years as Britten Sinfonia's Leader. A unique and inspiring musician, we talked to some of our principal musicians and others about what makes her so special...

Jackie taking her bow after directing Strauss' Metamorphosen in Wiltshire in April 2016.

Clare & Jackie in Norwich in Jan 2016

She is a wonderful musician and a natural, gifted leader. She directs with passion and commitment. Every rehearsal is injected with her enthusiasm and positivity - and this is shared amongst the players. Jackie's attitude in rehearsals is serious and fun. She skilfully and respectfully handles all our different personalities - things can get very heated when we are under pressure preparing for a performance with limited rehearsal time. She will steer everything in the right direction, often with humour, taking everybody on board. The culminating concerts, the success of which she is utterly committed to, always feel like a real collaboration of our work and ideas.  Jackie is a special person. We are lucky to have her!
Clare Finnimore, Principal Viola 

David & Jackie collecting an RPS award in 2013

Jacqueline's musical credentials and spirit embody the artistic ethos of Britten Sinfonia; a collaborative chamber musician of pure class and quality, hungry to embrace a wide range of music and collaborations from across the musical spectrum. It must be palpable to audiences watching and listening, how much she is adored by the orchestra and the many collaborators we’ve worked with over these years, and there’s no doubt that her artistry, inspiration and pure unfettered love of the music we play, has had so much to do with the orchestra’s happy success over these years.
David Butcher, Chief Executive

Jackie Shave is a musical force of nature. She has led and directed Britten Sinfonia over the last ten years with a magical combination of warmth, passion and inspirational music making. She ignites every project she undertakes. Her direction of Bach's St. John Passion was a triumph of unashamed emotional commitment combined with technical mastery. It was a highlight of my musical career and a privilege to participate.
Caroline Dearnley, Principal Cello 

Jacqueline Shave is simply one the most inspiring musicians I have had the privilege of sharing a stage with. Britten Sinfonia is deeply collaborative but in the end we would follow her anywhere without question. The Bach St. John Passion she directed was a deeply moving experience for us all and a 3-year journey for her. I will simply never forget it. She led the same piece for me at Dartington last summer with amateur forces and was equally as inspiring.
Nicholas Daniel, Principal Oboe

Thomas & Jackie in 2011

I've learned so much from sharing a desk with Jackie over the years in Britten Sinfonia - her unfussy leadership style, flamboyant musicality, and her special ability to deal with stressful situations by relaxing everybody around her. With leaders as good as Jackie, who needs conductors?
Thomas Gould, Associate Leader

Miranda & Jackie rehearsing in 2012

As ever this season, Jackie has been a real inspiration through her fabulous musicianship and unparalleled ability to encourage each member of an ensemble to give of their best. Britten Sinfonia is propelled by her into meteoric flight in any given genre or period of music, taking the audience with her.
Miranda Dale, Principal Second Violin



She’s such a fantastic leader – she’s very charismatic. You can tell that she’s thinking about so much more than just the notes.
Elena Langer, composer


This April and May Britten Sinfonia tours a programme specially curated by Jacqueline to celebrate her ten years at the helm of the orchestra. With performances in Wiltshire, Cambridge, Norwich and London the concerts feature a Bartok string quartet movement, a Mozart piano concerto with soloist Benjamin Grosvenor, Strauss' Metamorphosen and the world premiere of a new work by Elena Langer, commissioned and written especially for Jackie. Find out more here.

In both Norwich and London, Jacqueline will discuss her role as leader/director with Fiona Maddocks in a special pre-concert talk.

The creation of Link Explorer

Back in May 2015, I tumbled out of Shoreditch Overground station for a meeting to discuss the possibility of running a series of ‘relaxed’ concerts making them more accessible to audiences with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND). There was to be no particular therapeutic agenda, rather, we wanted to identify and address some of the barriers to SEND audiences attending a concert just like any other concert-goer. Feeling painfully uncool in the hip East London surroundings, I made my way to Oxford House and the offices of Children and the Arts. Oxford House on Derbyshire Street was established in 1884 as the first “settlement house” where students and graduates from Oxford undertook a period of residential volunteering to learn first-hand about the realities of urban poverty. Today, the trendily restored building (all steel and polished concrete) continues a legacy of social conscience with affordable office space (in addition to Children and the Arts, it is home to community dance and drama organisations, ethical fashion designers, the British Union of Spiritist  Societies, Food Cycle - recycling surplus food for the homeless - and the Phoenix Community Housing Co-Operative – among others), a gallery and performance spaces and regular community learning and engagement activities. It seemed fitting therefore that my meeting about engaging with SEND audiences and participants should take place in a building which, for 150 years has housed efforts to engage with the marginalised, the forgotten, the difficult and, if we’re very honest, the scary.

As human beings, the unknown is always challenging at best and at worst, terrifying. For the privileged young graduates of Oxford’s Keeble College, coming to work in what was the most deprived corner of East London in the late 1800’s must have been an eye opener. Britten Sinfonia, was about to step into similarly unfamiliar and difficult territory; the world of disability and special needs. 

Have I raised your eyebrows? Have I perhaps said something, even at this early stage, which might be offensive? Inappropriate? Or, god forbid, politically incorrect?

No, not yet but it's early days and the question is an example of one of the many challenges we face voyaging into new territory with which we’re relatively unfamiliar, with which the orchestral industry has engaged only in a relatively limited way, and in which we are certainly not expert but in which we’d really like to make a positive contribution.

In a previous incarnation with another orchestral organisation, I recall asking players to be involved with a project for Cooltan Arts, a London-based charity for adults with mental distress (I googled it and ‘mental illness’ is a term they prefer not to use - mental distress better describes, in a less discriminatory fashion, their clientele). I had little success in my recruitment efforts and was surprised and saddened. Here were a reliable group of enthusiastic, warm and caring musicians who greatly valued the projects with which they’d previously been involved. Why were they now reluctant? Incensed, I switched from email to phone (things were clearly getting serious) and called one of them. "It’s not that I don’t want to do it," he explained, "it’s just that I’m not an expert and I wouldn’t want to do something wrong, upset someone, say the wrong thing or make someone have a terrible experience. I don’t know anything about physical or mental disability; I’m not trained in that kind of work!"  

And there it was. Much as the will is there, we worry that because we’re dealing with the less-well-known, we don’t have the way.

Even at my meeting just talking about it, I found myself worrying if I was doing or saying the right thing. It started well, I described the difficult journey amid rush hour commuters as ‘completely mental’ and, having dropped my note-book and its stuffing of loose notes, photocopies and clippings all over the floor, apologised for being ‘a complete spaz’. The more I tried not to be offensive, the more I inadvertently seemed to be so. I don’t ordinarily use these words, honestly, I haven’t used them with any frequency since the school playground in the late 1980s but for some reason, my anxious attempts to be utterly correct resulted in their bubbling irrepressibly to the surface with embarrassing frequency.

For those of us who don’t work every day with engaging SEND, it is worrying to think we might stumble as we take our first, exploratory steps and understandably, we are therefore inclined to step back and let the experts take over. For any person, a negative experience can have long-term effects and for a vulnerable person, it seems fair to assume the effects may be magnified.

The pitfalls are very real but, they’re not unique to SEND work so why, when SEND is involved are we so cowed by the fear of failure? Why do we immediately feel that SEND is something other, beyond our familiar frame of reference?

I wonder if it has something to do with the profile of this work. It’s topical which means that failure is trotted out like a cautionary tale. It’s a hot topic and hot is hard to handle correctly. We fall automatically into the trap of thinking about SEND (them) and the concert (us). SEND audience members (them) and non-disabled audience members (us).

I remember calling a Deaf and Blind…sorry, a hearing and visually impaired … sorry, a deaf blind composer and performer and asking him how we should bill him in the programme. He laughed heartily when, embarrassed, I said that honestly, I really didn’t know what the correct terminology was and that I hoped he wouldn’t be offended by my call. "Everyone’s different," he explained, "everyone identifies in different ways. Some people use the word ‘Deaf’ with a capital ‘d’, others prefer ‘hearing impaired’, some use the pre-fix ‘profoundly’ but for me, that doesn’t accurately describe my personal hearing loss and I don’t really like labels anyway so I’m happy with whatever you like. I am human though, and I might change my mind!"

Well thanks, I thought, that’s not terribly helpful!  But then, as the conversation percolated over the following days, it occurred to me that is was the simplest and wisest piece of advice anyone had ever given me about working with SEND; everyone’s an individual, everyone’s different, everyone will have a different way in which they identify. Suddenly, it seemed simpler. If I stopped thinking about ‘SEND’ as an ‘other’, a collective unknown, a group outside my frame of reference and started to think about individuals, their unique needs, abilities, backgrounds, opinions, means of expression and so on, then I could even the playing field and we would all be on the same page. Rather than trying to find a way to fit SEND into a normalised frame, I could change the parameters; widen the frame to include all of us in all our special individuality.

As this realisation took place some years before my Oxford House meeting, it is clear that it was not a quick fix. We’ll always be a little anxious when we venture out of our zones of familiarity and unfortunately, in my case, this usually results in an episode of slapstick buffoonery. Focusing on individuals and what a person can do, their ability rather than disability levels the playing field. We don’t have to be experts because we’re all in the same boat. We can get involved, try things out, challenge and be challenged by a new frame of reference.

Jen, Creative Learning Director

Find out more about Link Ensemble in this blog

On Saturday 2 April 2016 in Cambridge Britten Sinfonia presents its first 'relaxed' family concert. Find out more about the Link Explorer Family Concert and book tickets here

Sinfonia Student review - At Lunch Three

Sinfonia Student Helen shares her experience of our At Lunch Three performance that took place in West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge on Tuesday 23 February...


Having never heard the combination of flute, viola and harp before – as well as being an enthusiastic Debussy fan – I was particularly looking forward to yesterday’s At Lunch concert with Britten Sinfonia. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t disappoint: the programme provided a fascinating and varied exploration of instrumental texture and colour, masterfully performed by Emer McDonough (flute), Clare Finnimore (viola), and Lucy Wakeford (harp). The blending of these three instruments created an extraordinary atmosphere in West Road Concert Hall – the perfect form of escapism in the middle of a busy day.

The concert opened and closed with works by Debussy, which gave an attractive symmetry to the programme. McDonough’s performance of Syrinx immediately drew us into the sound of the flute. Syrinx is a pivotal piece in the flute’s repertoire and one I have heard performed several times, but never quite like this: McDonough combined hauntingly lyrical melodic lines with delicate, acrobatic phrases in an almost hypnotic fashion, featuring moments of extremely soft dynamic which filled the vast space of the concert hall with remarkable ease. It was a breath-taking – if slightly eerie – insight into the range of colours the flute has to offer.

Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason 

(c) Samantha West

The flute was joined by the viola and harp for the next two items. As well as introducing me to a new combination of instruments, this section of the programme also exposed me to the music of Takemitsu and Daníel Bjarnason, two composers I had barely encountered before. In fact, I have discovered something new at each of the Britten Sinfonia’s At Lunch concerts this year, which is one of my favourite aspects of the series. Both pieces draw upon mosaic-like processes, resulting in fluid and fragmented textures in which short melodic ideas pass between the three instruments. In the Takemitsu, I particularly enjoyed the occasional moments where these fragmented parts converged onto a more unified triad or melodic line. What really stood out here was the blending of the viola and flute: I was not expecting two such different instruments to combine into such a homogenous timbre. These two instruments often seemed to work as a pair against the harp; Bjarnason particularly exploits this texture in the second section of Parallel, in which the flute and viola, playing sustained chords beneath a prominent moving part in the harp, gradually shift from the background of the texture to the foreground, capturing the listener’s attention as the harp slips away. Such subtle changes in texture always occurred seamlessly and organically, due to the carefully balanced and sensitive playing of the performers.

Next, the programme focused exclusively on the sound of the harp, with a performance of Donatoni’s Marches by Lucy Wakeford. This piece brought yet another new discovery: I had not previously appreciated the versatility of the harp as a solo instrument. Marches was a true showcase of harp technique, displaying a virtuosic range of sounds, colours and dynamic extremes; like Syrinx, the quietest moments of Marches were particularly captivating. I enjoyed the occasional jazzy harmonies emerging from the texture, which was again built from very fragmentary material – a clear preoccupation of this programme.

Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola and harp provided a return to the Syrinx sound-world for the end of the concert. The piece generally featured more homogenous textures than the other works, exploring yet more textural possibilities of this combination of instruments. Indeed, what most struck me about this piece was the fact that there was never a sense of one ‘solo’ instrument being accompanied by the others, as might be expected from a sonata model. The three performers participated equally and, despite their differences, no instrument seemed out of place. The remarkable cohesion of the performance has encouraged me to consider other instrumental combinations that might provide unexpected unity. Like so many Britten Sinfonia concerts, At Lunch Three demonstrated the benefits of thinking outside of the musical box.

Helen McKeown (Sinfonia Student 2015-16)

Don't miss At Lunch Four - featuring Schumann's Piano Quartet and a new work by Bryce Dessner - Norwich 8 April, Cambridge 12 April, London 13 April. More details.

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.

Meet Emer McDonough

In another of regular Q&A blogs we asked Britten Sinfonia Principal Flute, Emer McDonough a few questions ahead of her performances of Debussy's Syrinx and his Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp this February in Norwich, Cambridge, London and Southampton.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?

Being on the same stage as Martha Argerich when she played Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major. I cannot begin to describe the colours she created. I'd never heard such exquisite, evocative and sultry sounds from a piano.

When are you happiest?
When we are all on holiday and all is harmonious between my three boys ...


What is your earliest musical memory?
Watching my big sister play the piano and feeling so desperate to learn too.

Which living person do you most admire, and why?
My mother. She is everything I admire in a person. Kind, gentle, thoughtful, tactful, unbelievably intelligent, the most attentive listener.... I really could go on and on.

What has been your most embarrassing moment?
Misunderstanding a conductor's beat in the second movement of Liszt's Piano Concerto No.2 and going off piste for what seemed like an age. It was just horrible. I still don't know what I played or if he was in 2 or 4. I still blush and feel queasy when I think of it.

What is your most treasured possession?
Apart from my wedding ring and poems, pictures and stories by my kids, my holy communion cross is my most treasured possession. I've had it since I was 6 years old and I wear with it in times of need. I'd be devastated if I lost it.

What would your super power be?
Obviously to be in two places, no make that 3 or 4 places at once!! What's the technical term for that?

If you were an animal what would you be?
I love dogs and horses but I wouldn't want to be one. I caught sight of a hawk the other day riding the wind over an under 10 rugby match I was watching and I remember thinking it would have been pretty spectacular to be soaring up there.

What is your most unappealing habit?
Being absolutely useless with any technology. Speed reading and thus gleaning all the wrong or no information. Forgetting people's names the instant I hear them. Being uncomfortable with silence......

What is your favourite book?
Anything by Colm Toibin or Sebastian Barry.  Irish literature is especially dear to me, both prose and poetry, but I still love the Shakespeare sonnets and plays I learned at school and I always return to Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
I don't really know. I must find one quickly though. I was about to say finishing a cup of tea when it's still hot but I realise that's more of a basic human right than a guilty pleasure. Perhaps watching a panel show called "A league of their own " with my husband. It's just so silly and daft.

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Marcel Moyse, Roy Keane, Roger Federer, Ronaldo, Messi, Jessica Ennis, Judy Dench, Fireman Sam, Johnny Wilkinson, my husband, my closest friends and my three boys who all are football mad hence mainly sport themed dinner party.

If you could go back in time, where would you go?
To when my 2 year old slept.

How do you relax away from the concert platform?
I run, a lot.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Passing my driving test first time with a stupendous parallel parking manoeuvre & my children, oh and the principal flute stuff. I'm really very proud of that too.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
To be calm and take each moment as it comes. I forget to abide by this but the intention is often there.

In a nutshell, what is your philosophy?
 "Go to bed early" seems like a good one but not very eloquent. I say it a lot to the little people and to myself but rarely does anyone, including myself, listen! So I think to treat others as you would like them to treat you is my philosophy in a slightly cracked nutshell.

Emer performs Debussy's Syrinx, a new work by Daniel Bjarnason and Debussy's Sonata for flute, viola and harp with fellow principal players, Clare Finnimore (viola) and Lucy Wakeford (harp) in Britten Sinfonia's At Lunch Three tour. Performances take 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

You can read Emer's full biography here.

Sinfonia Student review: At Lunch Two

At Lunch Two: West Road Concert Hall, Tuesday 19 January

Stephen Wilkinson

Although this programme, the second in this season’s At Lunch concerts, was created as a celebration of texture, thanks to the musicians’ skill and sensitivity it became a showcase of artful balance and ensemble. The 250-year timespan of the pieces, stretching from Bach to a new composition by Anna Clyne, showcased similar techniques and sound worlds which formed parallels between temporally- and geographically-distanced composers’ works, which was hinted at by the title of Ligeti’s Continuum. The result was a varied programme, which attested to the richness and intertextuality of the Western classical tradition.

Despite the spacious dimensions of the 500-seat concert hall, the musicians created an intimate atmosphere from the very beginning of the programme, which began with the welcome addition of the sinfonia from Bach’s BWV21. The instrumental movement set the tone for the rest of the concert, drawing the audience into the fine textural world of J.S. Bach’s 1714 cantata in its stately pace, which was maintained by the whole ensemble, despite the absence of a conductor and with no perceptible intervention from Jacqueline Shave. At the outset of the concert, the ensemble’s disposition outlined a key element of the concert. The soprano, Julia Doyle, was seated by the harpsichord at the rear of the ensemble, allowing her colleagues to take centre stage. This was a programme in which no divide was felt between the vocalist and the instrumental group, instead promoting a sense of unity, which added to the overall impression of balance.  

Julia Doyle’s silvery soprano was a perfect fit for the ensemble from which her first soft sighs of ‘Seufer, Tränen, Kummer, Not’ seemed to issue in the aria from BWV21. Doyle’s expressive singing never compromised the intimacy created by the ensemble’s sparse accompaniment in this movement, establishing a mood which was carried on into ‘Chi m’addita, per pietà’, the first of two arias from Scarlatti’s Due arie notturne dal campo, arranged by Sciarrino in 2001. Whilst Doyle afforded a slightly more indulgent, warmer tone to this Italian aria, she once again appeared to work with the string players who, even in monophony, achieved a beautifully subtle balance, which supported the soprano perfectly.  Doyle’s repeat was adorned with understated decorations and never detracted from the searching, internalised mood that was shared by both the first Bach and Scarlatti arias.

Sciarrino’s layered string texture, particularly in the use of harmonics, found an interesting parallel in Pärt’s Fratres for string quartet (played today by Jacqueline Shave, Miranda Dale, Clare Finnimore and Caroline Dearnley). An example of Pärt’s ‘tintinnabuli’, a neologism of his own coinage, the success of this piece was testament to the instrumentalists’ superb grasp of balance. The four voices were so unified that the impression was of one instrumentalist rather than a quartet. The steady unfolding of Pärt’s ‘tintinnabular’ variations was effected so skilfully that the entire audience was completely motionless, including four rows of schoolchildren, as the piece’s sense of expansive timelessness stretched out, a notable achievement in a lunchtime programme of only one hour.

The ensemble found a new, more expansive, positive tone in the second Scarlatti arr. Sciarrino aria, ‘Non to curo, o libertà’. The imploring, internalised vocal tone Doyle had found up to this point was replaced with an enriched, confident warmth as the piece swung onwards. Doyle’s postural change here, opening up to the audience and allowing herself more movement, also marked this shift whilst her vocal performance always remained as restrained as the elegant strings. In the absence of oboist Marios Argiros, this all-female outfit was reunited in Bach’s soprano aria ‘Tief gebückt und voller Reue’ from Cantata BWV199, in which the pious timidity of his earlier work is replaced by a more self-assured tone. In response to this shift, the ensemble’s accompaniment was generous yet never overpowering. In return, Doyle’s attention to the soaring, more expansive soprano lines, although allowed to blossom from the instrumental texture, never detracted from her colleagues’ sensitive playing. Bach’s BWV187 aria ‘Gott versorget alles Leben’ saw the whole ensemble united in this warmer, fuller sound which accompanied Doyle’s more lavish tone in her declaration of ‘Weicht, ihr Sorgen’ (‘Worries, be gone!’), with the soprano and oboe lines joyfully interweaving above an accompaniment which glittered with harpsichordist Maggie Cole’s rich spread chords.

Cole’s performance of Ligeti’s Continuum saw the harpsichord’s capabilities span from its role in Bach’s cantatas to a more modern setting. Ligeti’s piece is at once reminiscent of Bach’s keyboard works and of twentieth-century minimalist techniques. The piece’s gradual changes and sense of steady crescendo created a sense of Cole taking a Baroque invention in all its intricacy of form and demarcation of individual notes, and slowly melting it down until smaller elements are lost in a blurred and blended sound world in which only broad changes can be perceived. As the piece moved towards the higher registers of the instrument, the percussive sound of the plectrums falling back onto vibrating strings suggested other more recent realisations of the harpsichord’s capabilities with a hint of musique concrète. Cole’s flair and sensitive playing were rewarded with applause worthy of this accomplished performance.

The nocturnal theme from Scarlatti’s Due arie notturne dal campo was echoed in Anna Clyne’s new work, This Lunar Beauty, co-commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and  Wigmore Hall. As W.H. Auden (whose poem Clyne sets for soprano, oboe, string quartet and harpsichord) and Benjamin Britten were collaborators as well as close personal friends, there was a sense of reuniting the two as the Sinfonia that bears Britten’s name played Clyne’s setting of Auden’s poem. The piece neatly encapsulated many of the programme’s explorations, mixing suggestions of British folksong with a more modern, avant-garde sound world. The setting of the poem’s second stanza sees rising scalic melismatic patterns in the soprano, echoed in the instrumental lines, suggesting a raising of the eyes and voice to the lunar object of the persona’s meditation. These more expressive, confident voices then surrender to a once again personal, introspective mood.

This programme showcased the capability of a small group of musicians to work together in order to create a diversity of moods and to highlight unobvious intertextual and intertemporal links between a range of pieces. Given the amount that this programme achieved, it is surprising that it lasted only an hour. It is testament to the quality of the musicianship and the diligence of the programming that the lunchtime concert was not only intellectually appealing but also contained many moments in which a weekday’s inevitable busyness seemed to melt away. All of the musicians are to be congratulated for today’s subtle yet no less powerful, varied or transporting performance. 

Stephen Wilkinson (Sinfonia Student 2015-16)

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.

Introducing Sinfonia Students

What is a Sinfonia Student?

Sinfonia Students is our one-year voluntary scheme, offering students valuable experience in arts administration. The scheme is currently open to students in Cambridge and, for the first time in 2015-16, London. Initially built from the orchestra's partnership with the University of Cambridge (as its Orchestra-in-Residence), the scheme has grown over the past two years to now work with students from Anglia Ruskin University, Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Royal College of Music.

Through this role, Sinfonia Students gain insight into the workings of a professional chamber orchestra as they work alongside the marketing team to promote concerts to the student community via print and digital media. They also receive great rewards and build a relationship with the orchestra with free concert tickets, a full week work experience in the offices, and the opportunity to write posts, such as reviews of concerts, which are published on our blog.

A manageable commitment 

The role of Sinfonia Student is different from a typical arts internship and allows students to work alongside the marketing team throughout an entire season, gaining insight into marketing strategies and techniques as they unfold. From personal experience, it is not always easy to commit to a full-time 3-6 month internship; they can be highly competitive, and costly in travel expenses if you do not already live in the city and the organisation is only able to reimburse a certain amount.

With the Sinfonia Students scheme, we wanted to create a manageable and flexible opportunity, that students could easily commit to while still balancing their studies and free time... 

"The role of Sinfonia Student really is one of flexibility and creativity. I was keen to apply, however I was aware that any commitments I made might be too much; on the contrary, I found that the experience was completely manageable, and yet that I could get as much back as I put in, which is so useful." 

(Carl, Sinfonia Student 2014-15)

A unique opportunity

During the year, Sinfonia Students implement and help to develop marketing strategies built for their university peers and have regular contact with Britten Sinfonia's marketing team. They also develop a relationship with the organisation as they spend a week in the office working with different departments, and have gone on to make professional contacts through events such as our Composers Workshop.

"When applying for the Sinfonia Student position, I had no idea how many new doors would open from this opportunity! Meeting some of the players and conductors has enabled me to make professional connections, and the whole experience has given me skills which I can take to other music administration jobs."  

(Simone, Sinfonia Student 2014-15)

Valuable experience for future jobs

In the competitive world of arts administration jobs, experience in the industry is becoming even more crucial when applying for a first job, and this type of valuable experience is something that being a Sinfonia Student can provide. Not just looking good on a CV, the role provides the opportunity to take on real responsibility and engage with developing marketing ideas that can make a first job application really stand out.

"Being a Sinfonia Student allowed me to acquire valuable work experience. I am now more confident that I can go into a working environment after graduating with the practical skills one may not acquire by solely completing their course of study."  

(Arseniy, Sinfonia Student 2014-15) 

"Being a Sinfonia Student has been particularly helpful: it provided me with experience in several areas relating to the fields in which I wish to work, something which employers value, without being stressful or unreasonably time consuming." 

(David, Sinfonia Student 2014-15)

Great fun

With free concert tickets, opportunities to attend rehearsals and the chance to make new friends, what's not to enjoy? Our Cambridge Sinfonia Students from the 2014-15 season enjoyed their experience so much they have volunteered to mentor the 2015-16 Sinfonia Students, providing additional support and advice as they begin the role.

Applications for Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Cambridge students are open until Friday 16 October. Click here for more information about the role and how to apply.

"If you're considering a career in arts admin or marketing, then this is definitely worthwhile!" 

(Emma, Sinfonia Student 2014-15) 

"This is a student experience with a professional orchestra not to be missed!" 

(Simone, Sinfonia Student 2014-15)

Read Carl's review of At Lunch 4 here.
Read Simone's experience of the 2015 Composers Workshop here.

Karys Orman
Marketing Coordinator

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.

Elena Langer on composition

In April/May 2016 we premiere a new work by Elena Langer, commissioned by Britten Sinfonia with support from the William Alwyn Foundation, and the Musically Gifted campaign. Find out more about Elena in this blog post as she answers questions about herself and her music...


How would you summarise yourself in one sentence?
Impulsive

What’s your earliest musical memory?
My granny’s drunken singing at parties

What do you like most about composing?
As a child I preferred composing to playing piano because it was less repetitive and took less time

What inspires you?
Bad weather

When was the last time you experienced writers’ block, and how did you move on from it?
Last block was last week. Moved on from it like all proper composers – with alcohol!

How do you feel about new music and what we’re trying to do with Musically Gifted?
I personally prefer old music, but Musically Gifted sounds like a good idea

What would you like to be recognised for?
For my delicious beetroot salad

What advice would you give to other young composers?
I should quote Sofia Gubaidullina here who said to an overly prolific colleague of mine – ‘don’t pollute the atmosphere!’

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?
Lutoslawki’s Chain 2

If you turned your iPod on now, what would be playing?
I haven’t got an iPod!

The last concert you saw?
Handel’s Saul at Glyndebourne

If you hadn’t been a musician, what might have happened?
I would have become a better and more roundly educated person

Which musical instrument do you wish you could play, and why?
Percussion – because there are so many of them and maybe it would develop my sense of rhythm…

Any plans for the summer?
To swim

Is there anything else you want to share with the world?
I wrote an opera ‘Figaro Gets a Divorce’. It will open at the Welsh National Opera in February of 2016 – I would like the world to come and see it!


Elena's new work, Story of an Impossible Love, will be performed during the Benjamin Grosvenor programme performed on Wednesday 27 April 2016 at Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall, Friday 29 April at Norwich's St Andrew's Hall and on Sunday 1 May 2016 at London's Milton Court. Click here for more info and to book tickets.

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.

Sinfonia Student review - At Lunch 2

Sinfonia Student David Roche shares his experience of our At Lunch 2 programme, which was performed on Tuesday 13 January 2015 in West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, and featured a new work by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho...

***

Kaija Saariaho’s instrumental writing is incredibly exciting and sophisticated, Nocturne is especially so and it proved to be an awesome opener. The rhythmically-loose, choppy, folk-style music moves into and out of broad musical gestures concomitant with spectral music: diaphanous trills between open strings and harmonics at a pace that prevents the lower pitches from ‘speaking’ properly; playing extremely close to the bridge in order to coax out a shimmering, unpredictable range of overtones (violist Garth Knox* calls this ‘irising’); looking to the sounds themselves to find an organising principle– all completely mesmerising in performance. The very strong hints of Scandinavian folk music were almost as striking, check out Benedicte Maurseth’s latest release Overtones to hear what I mean - similar soundworlds! Violinist Jacqueline Shave brought the work to life: a moving interpretation of a hefty composition.

Light and Matter was the second of two Saariaho pieces on the programme. The composer notes the influence of ‘the changing light and colour of Morningside Park’, especially ‘the continuous transformation of light on the glinting leaves’. The beautifully intricate, delicate instrumental writing and its evolution into dense, nebulous music certainly invites the listener make comparisons between the programme note and the composition - the hidden complexity of musical sound being used as a metaphor for light. The looming, resonating piano made me much more aware of the temporal nature of timbral sound: the attack and decay of its’ sounds drawing attention to one of the central precepts of the composition – gradual transformation. The trio gave a superbly assured performance of a difficult composition, the same being the case with the remaining works.

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho

The Debussy suffered from a slight tuning issue with the cello’s low C but this did nothing to detract from the performance as a whole. I was particularly fortunate as I heard the sonata performed in rehearsal prior to the concert where there was no such problem, it was played impeccably on the first attempt and I was the only audience member at the time… which was nice (no iPhones or whispering). Caroline Dearnly’s vivacious performance and Huw Watkins’s perfectly-matched pianism cut through the bricky tone of the concert hall with ease, an extremely secure, visually-engaging performance that, along with the final piece, served to concretize the concert as a success. 

Fauré

The Fauré was, along with Nocturne, the best performance of the concert.  Well-paced, gorgeously subtle rubato in the strings; crystal-clear, perfectly appropriate accompaniment from the piano; the visual presence and fantastically lyrical performance from the cellist, especially in the first movement, really brought the piece to life. The interplay of the cello and violin gave the work a wonderful narrative drive, the performers responded to each other’s phraseological nuances, a dialogue that set their parts away from the piano – refreshingly liberal.

As excellent as the performances were, I was far less concerned with the Debussy and Fauré. To my mind there’s something considerably more interesting in the compositions created by living, working artists: they are able to defend and discuss their works, contribute to new depths of expression, new ways of making, and new ways of thinking. There is so much music one can engage with and the major, most frequently performed repertoire constitutes a very, very small piece of an outrageously tasty, terrifyingly large, yet-to-be-fully-discovered pie. 

It is extremely reassuring to see a successful professional ensemble commission works and dedicate so much to contemporary classical music. It was particularly pleasing to hear, firstly, a living composer’s music as the centerpiece of a concert and, secondly, a female composer’s music as the centerpiece of a concert – living composers and women are woefully underrepresented in classical music** (see Bachtrack’s most recent survey). It seems outrageous that the two things are uncommon enough to be worthy of notice. Also, having lived in a few other cities I can say with some certainty that new music does not get its deserved share of performances, especially performances by musicians as committed and excellent as those in Britten Sinfonia. The people of Cambridge are very lucky to have this music available and should endeavor to make the most of it, however demanding it may seem on first hearing!

*Explore Garth Knox's Viola Spaces here.
**Click here to read an article from The Guardian exploring our current male-dominated classical music industry.

David Roche (Sinfonia Student 2014-15)