Music

Draighean was composed for Darragh Morgan as part of Ty Cerdd's Codi Ffidil+ program. It is feature on Ty Cerdd's 2024 album "Cysgodion"

Programme Note

Draighean is the Irish name for blackthorn. The blackthorn is associated with the dark side of the year. It is a prickly shrub with long thorns that can cause septic flesh wounds. It produces bitter sweet berries (sloes) that ripen after the first frost.The blackthorn is often associated with overcoming obstacles for a better future or protection and hope in the midst of devastation.

Infinity Duet was a collaboration with choreographer Faye Tann and sculpture Cecille Johnson Soliz. For more information about the project visit the in tandem project page. project page.

Performed by the Hard Rain Ensemble, Follower was one of their PRS Commissions in 2022.

Programme Note

Follower is based on the Seamus Heaney Poem of the same name. Instead of programmatically using the text as a basis for the material, I used IRCAM's SPEAR software to analyse the frequencies and timings within a recording of the poet reciting the poem. In this way, the piece is based on both the text and voice of the writer.

Performed by the Carducci Quartet as part of the Peter Reynolds Composer Studio 2019

Programme Note

The music that I compose is inspired by mental images. The image for this piece is a tattered cloth that is moved by wind blowing through it. I do not consider the connotations that are implied by this image or the things that this may mean. I merely follow the image and what it inspires in the music that I write. The listener is the free to consider what reactions that they then have in the music.

Programme Note

Hemlock is a spoken word text set to a multi track acousmatic tape. The instruments used in the tape piece were guitar, percussion (performed by myself), viola (performed by Jenny Plura), flute, saxophone and piano (performed by Jenny Kermode) and voice (performed by myself and Carmen Bradford) and the text is read by David Hill.

The text is an extract from the end of Plato's Apology which is his version of the speech that Socrates gave when defending himself on trial against the people of Athens. Being charged with corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and not believing in the gods of the state Socrates stood defiant in the stands before being found guilty and sentenced to death by drinking a mixture containing hemlock. The acousmatic piece reacts closely to the themes in the speech to create a dark sinister mood for the text.

Programme Note

Journey for Pianists is a recorded piece for a variable number of pianists that is created from recordings of individual realisations of an indeterminate score. The performers were not aware of the each other's realisation.

Programme Note

Journey for Clarinet Quartett focuses upon small musical cells while leaving the overall form to chance. Small units are arranged on the score which the performer moves through at their discretion. The form of the piece is a consequence of the path that the performer takes. Similar textures are grouped together in order to influence the final outcome but the musician's choices determine if certain material is an extended section or is transitory material on the path to something else. An additional consequence is that the piece only exists in live performance, a recording is a documentation of a single realisation from one moment in time but it is not a representation of the piece itself. As the music was composed for a two-hour premiere, the aim is to use as little repetition as possible at the same time as creating consistency in a constantly unfolding form.