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.:Webcast 3 Programme Notes:. | |
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Gordon McPherson Celeste Unborn Steven Mackey Five Animated Shorts* Edward Cowie Psappha Portraits (world premiere) PSAPPHA ENSEMBLE Kevin Gowland flute Dov Goldberg clarinet Richard Casey piano Tim Williams percussion/cimbalom John Melbourne percussion David Routledge violin David Aspin viola Jennifer Langridge cello Nicholas Kok conductor *Please note that due to a technical problem in the 3rd Movement of the Five Animated Shorts it was necessary to do a retake which the ensemble did in the interval of the concert in one take with no editing. Gordon McPherson (born 1965) Celeste Unborn My second child Celeste was born on 30th March 2007. I was commissioned to write this piece around the same time. The piece reflects my own feelings of anxiety, expectation and excitement leading up to the day of her birth. We knew she would be a girl but had no idea she would be so beautiful. If most of the piece is about me then the last few bars are definitely about Celeste – full of the hope of good things... Celeste Unborn was commissioned by Cove Park with a financial subsidy from the Scottish Arts Council. Gordon McPherson © 2008About the film My film is a meditation on the feeling of isolation, uselessness and fear felt as an expectant father awaits the birth of his first child, and what the world has in store for the unborn baby. That is all I want to say about it. The rest is up to the viewer. Steven Mackey (born 1956) Five Animated Shorts 1. Depending 2. Dancing For Sarah 3. Slippery Dog 4. Still in Motion 5. Lonely Motel The idea to write a piece for cimbalom and mixed ensemble came from Tim Williams. As a percussionist and artistic director of the contemporary chamber ensemble Psappha, Tim had often performed my music and knew that I was sympathetic to ‘underdog’ instruments – instruments not entirely embraced by the western concert music establishment. Tim taught himself how to play the cimbalom out of love for the instrument and he is now one of only a few concert cimbalom players outside Hungary. I primarily associate the cimbalom with gypsy, vernacular music although I am familiar with its use by composers such as György Kurtág. Tim and I were both interested in an ensemble piece that used the cimbalom within a group rather than as in a concerto. I again thought of the cimbalom in a more indigenous setting (like at Tim’s wedding) where it plays exhilarating folk music with other instruments (guitar, violin, bass etc). In that context, at times the cimbalom leads the music – in the way that a singer might, by presenting the tune and embellishing it – while at other times it is simply part of the ensemble. The cimbalom is never in opposition or competition with the group as a concerto soloist often is. All of the instruments, at some point, have important soloistic roles. The piano, in particular, shares the spotlight with the cimbalom. The different but related timbres between the two instruments, both struck with felt hammers, is an important orchestrational focus of the piece. The primary effect of the cimbalom in the ensemble is to transform, from within, the familiar modern music group into something more exotic. The form and substance of Five Animated Shorts were influenced by discussions and preliminary work I had done with a frequent collaborator Rinde Eckert. We were leading a workshop on creating experimental music theatre for which he invented a character – a scientist performing psychological experiments involving the identification of out of focus slides. Rinde wrote the following text: Slide Slide of Slide of dog Slide of dog running Dog running Running This was just one of many hypothetical images that Rinde described on behalf of his psychologist alter ego. Rinde and I are both dog owner/lovers. I liked the idea of writing music that would both set this text and animate the implicit motion in a still photo of a running dog. I liked the simple additive and subtractive process that connects the single word ‘Slide’, at the top, to ‘Running’, at the bottom. The motion between ‘Slide’ and ‘Running’ connects them as action words even though ‘Slide’ started life as a noun. Issues pertaining to this line of text permeate Slippery Dog and Still in Motion. As I began composing for cimbalom with all these ideas as a backdrop (instrumental folk music via cimbalom, dogs, running, sliding, creepy scientists with projectors, etc.) the music started to take shape as four short character sketches followed by a long lullaby (Lonely Motel). Each movement seems to have a little narrative to share or scene to draw and because of the quirky characters and generally bright, playful colours, the medium of short animated films seemed like a helpful metaphor to invoke in the title, not to mention the fact that four of the five pieces are animated and relatively short. Steven Mackey © 2008 Edward Cowie (born 1943) Psappha Portraits (world premiere) 1. Berthe Morisot (featuring viola) 2. Georges Seurat (featuring alto flute) 3. Wasily Kandinsky (featuring violin) 4. Jackson Pollock (featuring percussion) 5. Mark Rothko (featuring piano) 6. Bridget Riley (featuring clarinet) 7. Heather Cowie (featuring cello) Psappha Portraits is a series of seven portraits in sound. For nearly 40 years my music has been (mainly) inspired by three things namely; natural phenomena; the visual arts, and human nature. This suite of sonic-visualisations is the result of careful (and caring) studies of seven visual artists whose life and work has moved, enlightened, and inspired me. Edward Cowie © 2008I am not at all surprised that many who have played or listened to my music, find it both aurally and visually stimulating. I have always preceded any new composition with a series of drawings and/or paintings. I love to test acoustic ideas with and against visual mark-making. But this is also a series of ‘portraits’ of seven different instruments. For each of the artists I made subjects for a movement, I first composed a solo piece which was intended to be the most direct response to the techniques, ideas and forms employed by each individual artist. In fact, this piece can be performed in two ways, the first being that we hear the solo piece first and then hear it embedded within the context of an ensemble-piece with the six other instruments. The second is the way you are going to hear it tonight, that is, a suite of seven movements, each featuring a specific instrument from the ensemble. In either case, once you know which instrument is featured within a movement, it is relatively easy to search for and find that soloist, and the role the instrument plays in defining and shaping the special characteristics of each artist portrayed. The work is dedicated to tonight’s conductor, Nicholas Kok, who gave such a magnificent world premiere of my National Portraits in The National Portrait Gallery last year. He is also to premiere my enormous INhabitAT (with the BBC Singers and a much-enlarged Psappha), in London next week. So it is to his special imagination and musical skills that I owe the cause of this work. Without his friendship and very special musical mind, this piece would not be in the form it is. Nicholas Kok principal conductor, Psappha An extraordinarily versatile musician, Nicholas Kok’s work as a conductor and pianist has led to his engagement in major opera houses and concert halls, and at leading festivals, throughout the world. He has recently been appointed Principal Conductor of Psappha, the leading new music and music-theatre ensemble in the North of England. Concurrently with this role, he continues his association with sinfonia Viva (formerly East of England Orchestra), of which he was Principal Conductor (1996-2006), becoming Principal Guest Conductor last year. PsapphaWith a remarkably wide operatic repertoire ranging from Monteverdi, Handel and Mozart to Humperdinck, Britten and beyond, Nicholas Kok has established a reputation as a longtime champion of contemporary music, conducting numerous world and UK premieres. He has also collaborated (as conductor, composer and arranger) with several leading choreographers. Nicholas Kok has worked with many of the UK’s major orchestras and ensembles, as well accepting many overseas engagements. He has composed, arranged and recorded regularly for radio and television, as well as being involved with recordings for Opera Rara and Chandos. Future plans include new productions of Gluck's "Orphée" for Stuttgart Staatsoper, Piccinni's "La Cecchina" for Münchner Kammeroper, two Stravinsky programmes with Birmingham Royal Ballet and concerts and recordings with Psappha, ViVA and the BBC Singers. The leading new music and music-theatre ensemble in the North of England, Psappha was formed in 1991 by its Artistic Director Tim Williams. With Nicholas Kok as its first Principal Conductor, Psappha has an extensive and exceptionally varied repertoire of over 300 works and a reputation for technical assurance and interpretative flair. Its eight-strong regular membership encourages a refreshing diversity in the instrumentation of its repertoire, but its performances all bear the hallmark of sophisticated ensemble playing, marked by a high degree of communication and empathy among the players. Its distinctive concert series and mini-festivals have featured commissions and other premieres of works by a wide range of composers including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (Psappha’s Patron), Anthony Gilbert, Gordon McPherson, Karen Tanaka, Ronald Caltabiano, Rebecca Saunders, John Casken, Piers Hellawell and Steven Mackey. In 2000 Psappha gave the premiere of Mr Emmet Takes a Walk, a music-theatre work by Maxwell Davies (with direction and libretto by David Pountney) which it co-commissioned. The production won the Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Opera 2000, was enthusiastically received on European and UK tours, and has just been released on Psappha’s own CD label. Based in Manchester, Psappha has appeared throughout the UK, at such major music festivals as Aldeburgh, Bath, Buxton, Cheltenham, Huddersfield, Oxford and St. Magnus (Orkney); at the BBC Proms (where it made its sensational debut in 2004 with a late-night concert marking Maxwell Davies’s 70th birthday); and in Henze and Maxwell Davies portrait series in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. On the international platform, Psappha has made highly successful tours to North and South America, Australia, Belgium, France, Holland, Ireland, Jersey, Portugal and Spain. In 2004 it established its own CD label with unconducted performances of Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot. It also has six recordings on a range of other labels. Education projects represent an important part of Psappha’s busy schedule both in the UK and abroad. Currently the University of Manchester’s Contemporary Ensemble in Residence, it collaborates with people of all ages, devising and participating in composition workshops and courses, and was awarded the Swatch City Life Award for Best Concert Series and Education Work. www.psappha.com |
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