Howard Skempton
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Next Wave Higher Education commissioning project Loré Lixenberg mezzo-soprano • Sarah Nicolls inside-out piano • Oren Marshall tuba London Sinfonietta • Sound Intermedia electronics •Garry Walker conductor 1 WEIWEI JIN Sterna Paradisaea, Returning… 10’57 Loré Lixenberg • Sarah Nicolls • London Sinfonietta • Garry Walker 2 MAYA VERLAAK All Verlaak's Music is Alouette 7’33 Oren Marshall • London Sinfonietta 3 EUGENE BIRMAN The winter desert of my silences 9’56 Oren Marshall • Sound Intermedia 4 EDWIN HILLIER hibeh 9’20 Loré Lixenberg • London Sinfonietta • Garry Walker 5 JI SUN YANG KAIROI 9’26 Loré Lixenberg • Oren Marshall • London Sinfonietta • Garry Walker 6 GEORGIA RODGERS partial filter 10’57 Oren Marshall • Sound Intermedia 7 BEN GAUNT Filling Rubin's Vase 9’47 Sarah Nicolls • Oren Marshall • London Sinfonietta • Garry Walker 8 MICHAEL CUTTING I AM A STRANGE LOOP III 6’29 Sarah Nicolls • Sound Intermedia • London Sinfonietta • Garry Walker 9 OLIVER CHRISTOPHE LEITH hand coloured 9’39 Loré Lixenberg • London Sinfonietta • Garry Walker 10 BARNABY HOLLINGTON Velvet Revolution 9’23 London Sinfonietta • Garry Walker 11 PAUL MCGUIRE Panels 8’11 Loré Lixenberg • Sarah Nicolls • Oren Marshall • London Sinfonietta • Garry Walker 12 RYAN LATIMER Moby Dick 9’11 London Sinfonietta • Garry Walker Total timing 110’ 49” [1] WEIWEI JIN Sterna Paradisaea, Returning… for mezzo-soprano, ensemble and electronics Upon the sudden death of her father and after a long absence, a woman scarred by a traumatic childhood returns to her home in a mountainous village in Southwest China. Sterna Paradisaea, Returning… follows the seven-week long Chinese death ceremony as the woman communicates with her father’s spirit. The woman must cope with her family’s demands and the pressures of culturally enforced gender roles. Her ultimate struggle is the search for home, filial love, and forgiveness. ‘Why did I choose to leave this perfect place? The only home I have ever known...’ Sterna Paradisaea, Returning… is the second act of a large-scale transmedia opera project. Scored for eleven performers and electronics, this act employs one singer to bring the unique gift of words which enriches the collaboration and intimacy of chamber music. The voice is composed of three characters, denoting the inner and outer conflict and ‘speaking’ hidden emotions and love. The electronic part of the piece interprets Nuó drama (nuóxì), an ancient Chinese mask folk opera, which is a patterned step to drive away the devil during the last month of the Chinese lunar New Year. WEIWEI JIN (b.1982) is a Chinese-Swedish composer, sound/multimedia artist, producer and pianist who creates works across the genres of concert music, audio-visual installation, film, animation, contemporary dance and theatre. Influenced by her journeys across several cultures, Weiwei often crafts her ideas by using decontextualized cultural elements. She is currently based in UK working towards a PhD in Music under the supervision of Simon Emmerson in Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre at De Montfort University. She holds three Masters degrees, in Western Art Music and Composition and Electroacoustic Composition (both from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm) and Film Music Composition (from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts), as well as certifications in Music Technologies and Sonology (from IRCAM, Sibelius Academy and ESMUC). Her music has been performed and presented across Europe, Asia, North and South America, including Hyphen Hub Salon (New York), NIME, IN- SONORA Festival (Spain), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Stockholm Concert Hall, ICMC, SMCand femMESS Festival (Peru); it has also been broadcast by Swedish National Radio, Swedish National TV, Peruvian National Radio and Radio of Shanghai. Weiwei has collaborated with a variety of international artists, groups and organisations including Dirty Electronics, Margaret Schedel, Harvestworks, pianist Jingwen Tu and dancer Karin Elmore; in Sweden she has worked with Musica Vitae Chamber Orchestra, Hägerstens Chamber Choir and the Swedish Wind Ensemble. In 2013, she received funding from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee to collaborate with solo bassoonist Sebastian Stevensson (Danish National Symphony Orchestra) and pianist Asuka Nakamura (Japan). weiweijin.com [2] MAYA VERLAAK All Verlaak's Music is Alouette for ensemble All Verlaak’s Music is Alouette is part of a series of three pieces, composed between November 2013 and June 2014. The two other pieces in this set are All English music is Greensleeves for BCMG, premiered in March 2014 and broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and All Dutch music is Andriessen for Ensemble Klang, premiered at the Gaudeamus Festival in September 2014. During my London Sinfonietta rehearsal, Richard Baker and Richard Rijnvos – both of whom had studied composition in The Hague – remarked that I was a product of The Hague. I took this to be a criticism and answered in protest, ‘Though I studied in The Hague composition department, I never agreed with any of the teachers; I was constantly arguing with them, I felt I had my own way of composing.’ After making these remarks, I reflected further on the issue. Though I do not write music in the style of the ‘Haagse school’, I definitely have a Hague attitude. Looking back over on my pieces, there is a sustained sense of protest and critique running throughout my work. This combative attitude is the most obvious in my piece Kidnapping curator Ed McKeon. However, this ‘protest’ attitude shouldn't always be taken so literally: the most important part in my pieces is the act of reflection, which can create a protest piece, but that’s not the only direction it can take. Writing for the London Sinfonietta, I decided to go for the ultimate in self-reflection and simplicity. I looked back to my childhood and listened to all the cassette recordings of my voice and self-built instruments that I made between 3-8 years old. Listening back to it, I thought I could hear a tiny bit of my bedtime song Alouette. All English music is Greensleeves was written for BCMG: it started from the idea that members of BCMG are very good musicians, so why let them play? Let's not have them play, just because they are so good. The instruments will play by themselves, and the score will dictate not what notes to play, but how to stop the instruments from playing. MAYA VERLAAK (b. 1990, Belgium) studied at the composition and sonology departements in The Hague Conservatoire, Netherlands, where her composition tutors were Calliope Tsoupaki, Gilius Van Bergeijk, Peter Adriaansz and Diderik Haakma Wagenaar. She left Holland and travelled to Birmingham Conservatoire to study with Michael Wolters and Howard Skempton. maya.ricercata.org [3] EUGENE BIRMAN The winter desert of my silences for tuba and electronics This is a piece for a live tuba soloist and eleven pre-recorded, ‘inanimate’ tubas. They are as much voices as they are instruments; as much nothing as they are something. Despite the inclusion of electronics, this is, indeed, a solo piece: a solitary, meditative experience, at times ascetic or mystical, but with no pretensions of reaching to the divine. The title is from ‘The color of words’, written by Fabio Franzin, a poet of Milanese origin. With performances across the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America by leading orchestras, choirs, and soloists, EUGENE BIRMAN (b. 1987 in Daugavpils, Latvia) is a composer of music of ‘high drama’ and ‘intense emotion’ (BBC). His career has led to appearances on the world's most important media outlets, including CNN, BBC World TV, Radio France, Bloomberg TV, NPR's All Things Considered with Robert Siegel, Sveriges Radio, Deutsche Welle, CBC/Radio-Canada, ABC's Good Morning America, and many others. He has received commissions and performances from leading ensembles and orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, Latvian Radio Choir, Eric Ericsons Kammarkör, Juilliard Symphony, Sinfonietta Riga, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Estonian National Male Choir, the World Youth Symphony Orchestra and Ensemble U; other groups with whom he has worked include Resonabilis, Quartetto Prometeo, Cavaleri Quartet and PUBLIQuartet, members of the Deutsches Oper, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, and the Milan Conservatory, as well as soloists Maurizio Ben Omar, Iris Oja, and Axel Strauss. Upcoming premieres, including works for the Divertimento Ensemble (Italy), Anima Musicae (Hungary), Minnesota Orchestra, and Ruthless Jabiru as part of a Sound and Music Portofolio residency, are only a selection from the composer's ‘booming career’ (Festival van Vlaanderen). www.eugenebirman.com [4] EDWIN HILLIER hibeh for mezzo-soprano and ensemble hibeh explores the interaction and deconstruction of two contrasting texts – one in ancient Greek, the other in English. The first, taken from remnants of papyrus mummy wrappings from the 3rd century BC (excavated at the Egyptian town of Hibeh), remains fragmentary and disembodied from its original context. The second, composed especially by poet Emily Tesh, responds to the imagery of the Greek, taking its phonemic lead from like-sounding fricatives and consonants, which bridge the linguistic divide. hibeh’s principal concern is one of changing meaning and ultimate decay; with the two texts closely interwoven throughout, Tesh’s poetry finds only fleeting moments to escape the clutches of the Greek, and to speak clearly on its own terms. And yet, with each attempted release it retreats back into the ancient text,