Composition and Performance workshop with Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews

Following the success of the 2013 edition and the rerun-concerts in 2014, Aldeburgh Music (UK) invites again for an intense workshop with Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews from 30 June to 9 July 2015.

Colin Matthews © Maurice Foxall

Oliver Knussen © Mark Allan BBC

The list of Britten–Pears young composers reads like a Who’s Who of composition in the last 25 years, including such names as Thomas Adès, Julian Anderson and Luke Bedford. A group of 16 solo instrumentalists join six young composers to develop new music as well as prepare key repertoire pieces from the last 100 years. Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews lead a group of eminent tutors who, in recent years, have included Michael Thompson, horn, cellist Zoë Martlew and Melinda Maxwell, oboe.

For the composers, Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews lead a series of intensive coachings and workshops on new pieces created during the course. There may also be an opportunity for composers to conduct.

Several members of the ensemble join us on the recommendation of our Ulysses Network partners IKI/OPUS XXI HfMT in Hamburg (DE).

All new music will be showcased in a final performance on 9 July (detailed programme below) which will be repeated in a high-profile concert at the 2016 Aldeburgh Festival, to which composers will be invited.

Further reruns are also planned at IRCAM in Paris (FR).

More information here and please find below the detailed concert programme and information about the composers of the workshop.

Britten–Pears Young Artist Programme
Composition and Performance
Thursday 9 July 2015, 6pm, Britten Studio

Britten–Pears Ensemble, conducted by Jonathan Berman

Programme

Harrison Birtwistle (b.1934)  – DUET 5 for horn & trombone (2014)

Gunther Schuller (1925 – 2015) – GAMES (2013) UK première

Sean Shepherd (b.1979) – METAMORPHOSES (2004)

György Ligeti (1923 – 2006) – FOUR BAGATELLES (1953)

Liam Mattison (b.1990)  – EPISODES FROM ‘HERMANN’ (abridged) (2015)

Gareth Moorcraft (b.1990) – LUDO (2015)

Jack Sheen (b.1993) – A curve or geometrical figure (2015) Jack Sheen, Conductor

Ruth Crawford-Seeger (1901 – 1953) – STRING QUARTET (1931) iv. Allegro possibile

** Interval (15 minutes)**

Hans Abrahamsen (b.1952) – PRELUDES 1,2,5,7,10 [from String Quartet No.1 – Ten Preludes 1973 rev.’76]

Pierre Boulez (b.1925)  – PETITE DÉRIVE – EN ÉCHO (1998)

Arnold Schönberg (1874 – 1951), arranged by Hans Abrahamsen (b.1952) (1998) – FOUR PIECES (from 6 Little Piano Pieces, op.19)

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 – 2007)     
COMMUNICATION [“From the Seven Days” 1968]
JAPAN [“For Times to Come” 1970]

Tom Rose (b.1991) – COKE BINS OTHER THINGS (2015)

Josephine Stephenson (b.1990) – DISQUIET (2015)

Freya Waley-Cohen (b.1989) – MAGPIE (2015)

Michael Taplin (b.1991) – SPINDRIFT (2015)

Colin Matthews (b.1946) – L,BENT (1993)

Composers

Liam Mattison is a composer and performer based in London. Born in Leeds, Liam began his musical life playing clarinet in local wind bands and orchestras, whilst simultaneously gaining a strong interest in experimentation and composition. In 2008, Liam moved to London to study composition at TrinityLaban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Whilst there, his compositional voice developed into one that focuses on the beauty he hears in sound; his music evoking a high sense of drama and expressing a quest for reconciling the past and present in a coherent musical language. Liam remains active as a performer and curator, founding the Modi Ensemble and the Vista Wind Ensemble. He toured a new interpretation of Earle Brown’s December 1952 with 5 musicians and a troupe of 30 dancers, which culminated in a performance in the Clore Ballroom, Southbank Centre. Liam has had works performed internationally, including the Conservatori Liceu (Barcelona), the Queen Elizabeth Hall, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, The Forge, RWCMD, St. Lawrence Jewry, The Chapel at the Old Royal Naval College and Ripley Castle. Recent projects have included; a Horn Trio for Huw Watkins, Alex Wood and Richard Watkins, a choral piece for the Blossom Street singers, a piece for CHROMA and a commission from the Gaglianos Ensemble which was premiered in St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Other recent commissions include from the Crouch End Festival Chorus, Westcombe Brass (in association with Live Music Now) and soprano, Emily Garland. In 2013, Liam attended the Advanced Composition course at the Dartington International Summer School, lead by Francesco Antonioni, and generously supported by the Dartington Hall Trust. He is currently studying at the Royal Academy of Music, under the guidance of Philip Cashian and has also received individual tuition from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Oliver Knussen.

Gareth Moorcraft is a Welsh composer currently based in London. He studied composition with Robert Saxton and Gary Carpenter, before commencing his PhD in composition with David Sawer and Simon Bainbridge at the Royal Academy of Music in 2014. Gareth has a strong interest in multimedia work, and enjoys collaborating regularly with dance choreographers, film-makers and writers. In 2014, he composed a piece with choreographer Mathieu Geffré for the National Dance Company of Wales, and he has recently written a new film score for Ralph Steiner’s silent film H2O (1929), which was commissioned and performed by Sinfonia Cymru. Gareth’s music has been performed regularly in the UK by musicians including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the CHROMA ensemble, and the Endymion Ensemble. In 2012, his work Rondo for wind trio won the British Composer Award student competition and was broadcast on BBC Radio 3. He has also won the Eric Coates Composition Prize (RAM) and the Tŷ Cerdd National Welsh Composition Competition (2013). Gareth is currently working on a song cycle with Welsh poet Lydia White and a viola concerto for Lourenço Sampaio.

Tom Rose is an artist/musician based in the UK. His work unravels in the spaces between instrumental and electronic practices, and often where they bleed into each other. He has presented work at the Bridgewater Hall (Manchester), Café OTO, London Contemporary Music Festival, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Festival Hall (London), The Sage, Gateshead (Newcastle), Snape Maltings (Suffolk); broadcast on BBC Radio 3: Hear and Now, In Tune, Late Junction, BBC Radio 4: Today, NTS Live, Resonance FM; and has been commissioned by Aldeburgh Music, BBC Proms, and Mahogany Opera Group. He co-directs imprint/record label Slip (formerly Slip Discs): releasing exploratory work on the fringes of new instrumental and electronic music, and is a co-founder of ddmmyy: a concert/event series. Through 2007–2010 he was a composer and performer with Aldeburgh Young Musicians, Britten–Pears Young Artist Programme, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and won BBC Young Composer of the Year. In 2010 he took up a scholarship at the Royal Northern College of Music, where he studied with Larry Goves, and graduated in 2014 with First Class (Hons).

Jack Sheen is a composer and conductor from Manchester. Following an interest in experimental and electronic music he began composing in sixth form, and went on to study on the RNCM/University of Manchester Joint Course with Larry Goves and David Horne. He graduated in 2014 with the Hargreaves Prize for composition and First-class honours specialising in composition, conducting and aesthetics. In 2011 he was awarded BBC Young Composer of the Year and has since written music for the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Aurora Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Psappha, National Youth Orchestra, Opera North and the RNCM after receiving a Gold Medal for composition in 2012, the 2013 Grindon/Dearden Prize and Highly Commended in the Theodore Holland Prize in 2014. Conducting and curating are central to Jack’s work. He is the Artistic Director of the contemporary music concert series ddmmyy, and between 2012-14 was a student conductor for Manchester University, programming and conducting a variety of concerts ranging from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro to Varèse’s Intrégrales in collaboration with Psappha. Jack has enjoyed working with Ensemble Linea in France, Halberstadt Orchestra in Germany, Psappha and ACM in the U.K., with whom he has performed with twice at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. 2015 will see Jack work alongside Matthis Pintcher at the Lucerne Festival Academy and Sian Edwards at the Dartington Summer School.

Josephine Stephenson grew up in France and as a teenager was part of the Maîtrise de Radio France, the national radio’s children’s choir. She read music as an undergraduate at Clare College, Cambridge, before completing a Masters in Composition at the Royal College of Music as a Richard Carne scholar, graduating with Distinction in 2014. Her composition teachers have included Kenneth Hesketh (RCM) and Giles Swayne (Cambridge), and she has participated in masterclasses led by Samuel Adler, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Georg Friedrich Haas and Ivan Fedele among others. Josephine’s work has been performed by musicians including Sinfonia d’Amici, the Albany Trio, The Hermes Experiment, Explorensemble, Outcry Ensemble, Ensemble WOW, the Maîtrise de Radio France, the Choir of Clare College Cambridge and violinists Joo Yeon Sir and Fiona Monbet. A keen collaborator, she regularly writes for theatre and film, as well as working as assistant for Dario Marianelli. She runs, alongside Freya Waley-Cohen and William Marsey, a concert production company called Listenpony, putting on events mixing contemporary classical music with traditional classical music, pop music and jazz. Upcoming projects include a 40-part choral piece for the last night of the Bristol Proms this August as well as two “theatre-operas” in France and England next season.

Michael Taplin Born in 1991 and raised in London, Michael Taplin has been actively involved in writing music from an early age and studied privately with Dai Fujikura with a grant from the Talbot House Trust. In 2009, Michael was accepted a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with a Scholarship where he studied with Paul Newland. Michael’s music has been performed/ workshopped by groups such as the Gemini Ensemble, Exaudi, The Composers Ensemble, the Namascae Lemanic Modern Ensemble and the London Symphony Orchestra. Michael attended the St. Magnus Composers‘ Course in Orkney, Scotland with Sally Beamish and Alasdair Nicolson and more recently the Britten Pears Composition Course in Aldeburgh with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Michael Gandolfi, Dartington International Summer School’s Advanced Composition Course and the “New Voices” Artist’s Programme at Royaumont Abbey with Brian Ferneyhough, Fabien Lévy and Oscar Bianchi. Michael is currently completing his Masters of Composition at the Royal College of Music in London with Jonathan Cole and Simon Holt. He is generously supported by an Audio Network Award.

Freya Waley-Cohen’s music has been performed by musicians including Orchestra of the Swan, CHROMA ensemble, Claremont Trio, Blossom Street Singers, Richard Watkins, Alexandra Wood & Huw Watkins. She was 2013 Composer in Residence at Northern Chords festival, a 2013 Apprentice Composer with Orchestra of the Swan, and is the Associate Composer of both the Magnard Ensemble and Reverie Choir. Her music has been performed in the Sage Gateshead, Spitalfields Festival, The British Film Institute, The National Portrait Gallery, and Kew Gardens during the 2014 Intoxication Season. Freya studied with Giles Swayne during her undergraduate at Cambridge, and with Simon Bainbridge for her Masters at the Royal Academy of Music. At RAM, Freya was awarded the 2013 J.E. West Prize, and is the current Manson Fellow. She holds an Open Space residency at Aldeburgh Music for her collaborative project ‘Permutations’. She is a founding member and artistic director of Listenpony.

The Ensemble
An international group of young musicians, aged between 22 and 28, collected together for the first time nine days ago, have achieved a remarkable understanding of this contemporary repertoire.
The programme this afternoon covers a wide spectrum of musical styles, solo to small chamber groupings, to large ensemble covering 20th Century classics and brand new scores from the young composers.
Working on this repertoire has challenged their musical skills both technically and musically. Today’s event is a culmination of a short but intense process of work and is a vital component in learning the skills of collaboration between composer and player.

Course Directors
Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews

Guest Teacher
Michael Gandolfi

Ensemble Tutors
Zoë Martlew (strings), Melinda Maxwell (wind), Michael Thompson (brass)

Ensemble
Violin I -Sarah Saviet (USA)
Violin II – Eva Sarcletti (Austria)
Viola – Jasmine Beams (USA)
Cello -Cecilia Bignall (UK)
Double Bass – David Connor (USA)
Flute – Bethany Tempest (UK)
Oboe – Michael McGowan (USA)
Clarinet – Jack McNeill (UK)
Bassoon – Matthew Payne (Australia)
Horn – Alexei Watkins (UK)
Trumpet – Conrad Jones (USA)
Trombone – Antonio Jimenez Marin (Spain)
Piano – Qing Jiang (China)
Harp – Catherine Derrick (UK)
Percussion – Michael Rareshide (USA)

Supported by The Leverhulme Trust