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, its cantillation gradually etched, erased and worn down by the ancient words, until the two languages remain on an equal footing – fragmented and bleached by time.

Texts Transliteration of ancient Greek taken from the Hibeh Papyri mummy wrappings (printed alongside a translation of the fragmentary text):

hamartion of sins -n hamarti (in) sin … esti mechane there is a contrivance

… -on teknon (?) child

hamartese I shall sin … panero clear -pane tu … you seem

Words taken from Emily Tesh’s Going Forth, 2014 (lacunae indicate omitted words from poet’s original text):

hold the whole body face down to the linen (...) old words fading and the pledge of sand

(...) hard art of lasting face down and bound in writing and linen (...) will not come.

EDWIN HILLIER (b.1988) grew up in Derbyshire, and received his first formal lessons in composition while still at school. In 2007 he was awarded a choral scholarship to Cambridge University where he read Music, studying composition with Giles Swayne and Ryan Wigglesworth, before embarking on two years as a professional singer with the Choir of Gloucester Cathedral.

Edwin was subsequently awarded a scholarship to study for a Masters in Composition at the Royal College of Music with Jonathan Cole and Kenneth Hesketh, graduating with Distinction in June 2014. While at the RCM, his studies were generously supported by both the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Edwin returned to the RCM in September 2014 to commence doctoral studies in composition, while holding the position of Composer-in-Residence at Handel House for 2014-15.

As a composer, Edwin’s works have been performed by artists including London Sinfonietta and Loré Lixenberg, BLOCK4, Adrian Partington and the Choir of Gloucester Cathedral, the Choir of Christ’s College Cambridge and the explorensemble, and at venues and events including Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Nonclassical, Limewharf, From the Soundhouse, the Science Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and live on Resonance FM. In May 2014, Edwin’s first opera, Serpentine (created with librettist Edward Allen, in response to the works of William Hogarth), was staged to critical acclaim by Tête à Tête Opera at the RCM’s Britten Theatre, directed by Bill Bankes-Jones and conducted by Tim Murray. edwinhillier.com

[5] JI SUN YANG KAIROI for mezzo-soprano, tuba and ensemble

Kairoi, the plural of Kairos, means ‘the times’. The initial idea was Kairos in Chronos: the tutti pulsation, like the tick of a clock, becomes irregular and measured time disappears. Moments of silence are built into repeated rhythmic patterns. My piece aims to capture these concepts of time passing by utilising the natural mechanism of the human breath. The mezzo-soprano mostly sings the echoing effect of vowels; at times cooperating, at times in conflict; from intelligible verbal utterances to language-like sounds, to pure musical tone, free of linguistic content.

JI SUN YANG (b. 1979, Seoul, South Korea) is a composer, pianist and accompanist. She studied composition at Sook-Myung Women’s University in Seoul (BA); in 2003 she moved to the Netherlands, continuing her studies at the Hague Royal Conservatory (BA and MA), where her tutors included Sue- Yeon Hong, Gilius van Bergeijk and Martijn Padding. She is a PhD candidate at University of York, supervised by Thomas Simaku.

Her music has been featured at festivals including Gaudeamus Music Week, Amsterdam (2007, 2008 and 2010), ISCM in Sydney (2010) and Belgium (2012) and Nederlandse Muziekdagen (2009). She has received commissions from ensembles such as Percussion Group The Hague, Spectra Ensemble, Ensemble Klang, Trio Agartha and Doelen String Quartet. Her music has also been performed by Asko Ensemble, Ensemble TIMF (Seoul), Ensemble Besides, Trio La Mer, Zenas Kim, Leonard Kwon and Chimera Ensemble.

Ji Sun has attended courses including Ostrava Days 2007 (Czech Republic) and Apeldoorn Young Composers Meeting 2008 (the Netherlands), and travelled to the US for the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival in 2008. Her work for percussion quartet was awarded third prize by the Italy Percussive Arts Society (2009). Recent collaborations include projects with Sound and Music and New Dots. www.jisunyang.com

[6] GEORGIA RODGERS partial filter for tuba and electronics

This piece approaches the tuba from an unusual angle in order to reveal hidden characteristics and really explore its sound world. I’ve concentrated on the sound made when the player breathes through the tuba without playing a pitch – a filtering of air through the volume of the instrument. Electronic processing techniques are used to magnify these sounds and focus in on the slight changes in grain which occur when the player make tiny adjustments to his breathing, resulting in a close-up image. Later we arrive at simple pitched sounds which swell and fill the space, before returning to filtered noise.

GEORGIA RODGERS (b. 1985) is studying towards a PhD in Music Composition at City University, London, working part-time under the supervision of Dr Newton Armstrong. She specialises in music for acoustic instrument and electronics, with a particular interest in the construction of space, the perception of sound and the human experience of listening.

Georgia holds a BSc in Physics with Music and an MSc in Digital Composition and Performance, both from the University of Edinburgh. She also works as an acoustician for a firm of consulting engineers based in Camden, and lives and works (and was born) in north London. polarpatterns.wordpress.com

[7] BEN GAUNT Filling Rubin's Vase for inside-out piano, tuba and ensemble

Rubin’s Vase is an optical illusion named after the Danish psychologist, Edgar Rubin. Two faces are shown in profile, and the negative space between them forms the shape of a vase. In Filling Rubin’s Vase, the work alternates between low and high material. A middle register (between middle C and the octave above) is not explored until the end; the ‘negative pitch space’ between the low and high material is filled.

BEN GAUNT (born 1984) studied for a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music, kindly funded by The Countess of Munster Musical Trust. He is currently at The University of Sheffield studying for a PhD in Composition with Dorothy Ker and George Nicholson.

Ben has been asked to write numerous works for various soloists and ensembles, including The Icarus Ensemble, Ensemble 10/10, Christopher Redgate, and Size Zero Opera. Performances of Ben’s works have been funded by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, Sir Max Bemrose Bursary Trust, The Frances Chagrin Award, the Bliss Trust and PRSF Composer Bursaries, Arts Council England, and various other European funding bodies. Alongside fellow composers Eve Harrison and Steven Jackson, Ben co-founded the ensemble Sounds of the Engine House, who toured the North of England in 2013 and 2014, funded by Sound and Music. Sounds of the Engine House also programme concerts of new music, and have curated events at The Bridgewater Hall and Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival, featuring some of the UK’s most talented young musicians and composers.

Ben’s doctoral research involves the perception of time, architectural proportion, dimensionality, the big bang, and the big crunch. His music has been described as ‘jazzy’ by Alfred Hickling of The Guardian (and this is sometimes true), but Ben also finds inspiration in the music of Gérard Grisey, Trent Reznor, Harrison Birtwistle and Nick Drake. bengaunt.com

[8] MICHAEL CUTTING I AM A STRANGE LOOP III for inside-out piano, ensemble and electronics

I AM A STRANGE LOOP III is the third in a series of works responding to Douglas Hofstadter’s book of the same name. Written for a trio of ‘inside-out’ piano, percussion and portable cassette players, the work takes as its starting point the sound of a working cassette player, recorded onto a cassette played by the cassette player… As glitches and perceivable frequencies emerge, the sounds are imitated, expanded and developed by the other instruments until the music is no longer about the tape but rather the interactions between the three live performers.

The work was similarly inspired by Sarah Nicoll’s unique ‘inside-out’ piano, and is a homage to the instrument’s earlier prototype to which were attached numerous buzzers, electronics and a bicycle wheel. The lo-fi electronic, mechanical and percussive setup of my work is thus an expansion of the suggested possibilities of the instrument itself.

MICHAEL CUTTING (b. 1987) is a composer and curator based in Manchester and London. His music has been performed by groups such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Exaudi, Philharmonia Orchestra, Namascae Lemanic Ensemble, Endymion Ensemble and Manchester Camerata. Having graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in 2011, he is now pursuing a PhD in Composition at Kings College London, supervised by George Benjamin. He has participated in composition courses such as IRCAM’s ManiFeste Academy, Royaumont’s Voix Nouvelles and Dartington Summer School, taking lessons with composers including Brian Ferneyhough, Oscar Bianchi, Fabien Levy and Unsuk Chin. Recent prizes include an RPS Composition Award (2013), LSO Panufnik Prize (2014) and Sound and Music’s Francis Chagrin Award (2013). www.michaelcutting.co.uk

[9] OLIVER CHRISTOPHE LEITH hand coloured for mezzo-soprano and ensemble

Hand colouring is the process of painting colour on to a black and white photograph.

The process of hand colouring a photograph allows a projection of the painter’s ideal onto a pre-existing image: it does not bring it to life, as such, but brings it to a different life. The addition of colour/ decoration completely transforms the image whilst the light, shade, grain and detail of the original remain untouched. The result is never a convincing/realistic colour version of the original but rather a sort of warped otherworldly take on the familiar. Hand coloured worlds do not have the full spectrum of colour but a limited palette of selected colours; the colours are applied after the photograph has been processed, they cannot be accurate, they are always distanced from the original. My ‘hand colourings’ use this visual process to change pieces from the Roman de Fauvel. Instead of palettes of colour, there are palettes of sounds informed by the original material. Colours ‘hang’ from the original pitches.

The music is based on: Veil: Zelus Familie (anon.) from Roman de Fauvel Imitation: Quare Fremeurunt (anon.) from Roman de Fauvel OLIVER CHRISTOPHE LEITH (b.1990) is a London-based composer, writing acoustic and electronic music for concerts, films and dance. Tunes and sounds have been performed by the likes of Opera North Orchestra, Guildhall Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, + - ensemble and EXAUDI and at venues such as the LSO St. Lukes, The Place, the Barbican cinema, Wigmore Hall, Kings Place and L’Espace Maurice Fleuret. He has recently received a Royal Philharmonic Society composition prize.

He also runs the Locus Project in which new works are commissioned for spaces of interest, such as The Old Operating Theatre of St Thomas’ Hospital. Completing his undergraduate studies with Julian Philips in 2013, he is now studying with Paul Newland on the Masters course at the Guildhall, generously supported by The Countess of Munster Trust and the Guildhall School Trust. He is a fan of gardening and scientific illustrations. www.oliverchristopheleith.com

[10] BARNABY HOLLINGTON Velvet Revolution for ensemble

Musically speaking, ours is largely an age of extremism. Since 1945, every major new movement within ‘art’ music has embodied an extreme form of musical expression of one kind or another – total serialism, aleatoricism, new complexity, minimalism (‘holy’ or otherwise), spectralism... Most genres of contemporary popular music also operate within extreme expressive and technical limitations. This is not intended as a value judgement: each such movement has yielded its fair share of excellent work.

But it is too often forgotten that one can be extremist without being innovative or even interesting, and that one can be both interesting and innovative without being extremist. Velvet Revolution hopefully illustrates the latter point.

In Velvet Revolution and elsewhere, I explore certain types of expressive territory that none of the aforementioned ‘isms’ can reach. My music is ‘post- tonal’ (I consider the term inadequate), but my harmony operates differently to other ‘post-tonal’ harmony. Therein lies the expressive distinction. Unlike most ‘post-tonal’ composers, I am more interested in harmony that need not be confined to mere colour, but can also be made to function grammatically, in a clearly discernible way to the listener. One can achieve this with any harmonic vocabulary, without reverting to traditional Western tonality – a key to being innovative and interesting without resorting to extremism.

The phrase Velvet Revolution was of course originally coined to describe political events in the former Czechoslovakia in 1989-90, which resulted in a peaceful transition from communism to democracy. In my piece, the significance of the title is mostly musical rather than socio-political, but all sorts of parallels can be drawn – too many to list here! I will leave these for you to guess.

BARNABY HOLLINGTON was born in Norwich in 1975. He grew up mainly in Australia and France, but returned to Britain in 1993 to study music at New College, Oxford and then composition at the Royal College of Music. Due to dissatisfaction with his own work, he then gave up composition altogether, and trained as a teacher.

In 2002, Barnaby resumed composition in his spare time, adopting a radically different approach. He was subsequently awarded prizes in several international composition competitions in Finland, Austria, Japan, Luxembourg and Slovakia. Recordings of his music were released by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, Tonkünstler Niederösterreich, Luxembourg Sinfonietta and Melos Ethos Ensemble. He was commissioned to write a further work for the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra in 2007.

In 2008, Barnaby was selected for the Sound and Music composer shortlist, but by then he had all but given up composition again, to concentrate on teaching, following numerous unsuccessful applications for PhD funding. Since August 2013, however, considerably more favourable financial circumstances have allowed him to resume composing. Barnaby is now studying for a PhD in composition with Martin Butler at the University of Sussex, where he is also an Associate Tutor.

Three of Barnaby’s scores have now also been published by Editions Musica Ferrum. A fourth – Prosthesis for solo piano, will be published later this year, and recorded by Mytro Akrivou. www.musica-ferrum.com/composers/barnaby-hollington.php

[11] PAUL MCGUIRE Panels for mezzo-soprano, inside-out piano, tuba and ensemble

The primary focus of Panels is timbre. Re-imagining how they should approach their instruments, the performers create diverse and complex sounds, often unrecognisable from their sources. These sounds are arranged into dense slabs or panels of noise. The abruptness and looping quality of these slabs allude to a crudely jagged, note-on/note-off sample triggering. This is an important link, as I used sampling extensively as a compositional tool for this work. I created demo recordings of every sound used and layered these in various ways. After auditioning hundreds of combinations, I decided upon the piece's final arrangement.

PAUL MCGUIRE (b. 1988) is a Dublin-born composer based in London. He is fascinated by the grain of sound and the interactivity between real and recorded sound. He investigates the acoustic, timbral and technical characteristics of musical instruments, beyond a usage of extended techniques in order to focus his practice on sounds that one wouldn’t normally associate with such instruments. He is also interested in low fidelity audio production, and he takes full advantage of sampling and looping technologies, building dense textures of sound from on-the-fly home recordings.

Paul earned a BA (Hons.) in Music from Trinity College Dublin, where he specialised in composition under Donnacha Dennehy and Sean Reed, and pursued further composition studies at Brunel University London. He is currently studying for a PhD in Composition at Brunel with Jennifer Walshe and Christopher Fox, funded by the 2012 Elizabeth Maconchy Composition Fellowship Award.

In February 2013, Paul won the Pablo Wendel – Performance Electrics International Composition Competition for his piece Marshes (2013), written for mass guitar ensemble. His compositions have been performed at Bang on a Can's Summer Music Festival (2011) in Massachussetts, USA, II Bienal Música Hoje (2013) in Curitiba, Brazil, SPOR Festival (2014) in Aarhus, Denmark, Nürtingen international Guitar Festival in Germany, and CeReNeM's Noise in and as Music symposium in Huddersfield (2013), and by various ensembles including ensemble cross.art, OSG (Open Source Guitars), Con- Tempo String Quartet and turnEnsemble. As a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, he often performs his own work autonomously or with others. In their review of SPOR Festival, The Quietus called his performance ‘ingenious... a quiet festival highlight’. paulmcguirecomposer.com

[12] RYAN LATIMER Moby Dick for ensemble

It seems obvious to say that this work was at least to some degree influenced by Herman Melville’s classic 1851 novel, Moby-Dick – though it is not an earnest attempt at a musical representation of the narrative itself or its themes. Rather, the composition draws upon particular structural and stylistic traits within the novel that I found interesting and that in some way resonated with my own compositional preoccupations.

Structurally, the novel has a clearly linear and progressive narrative. It is quite literally a voyage with a deliberate destination and goal, to pursue and overcome the brutally destructive monster, Moby-Dick. However, since the story is in essence a parable, the characters are very clearly stylised, each possessing a single distilled human characteristic – the innocent orphan, the vengeful captain, the stoic elder. It was this relationship between the gradually unfolding narrative underpinning the novel and the dramatically delineated character types that I wanted to capture in my own work; though admittedly much more playfully. Throughout the composition there are a number of conflicting musical materials, each of which are clearly characterised and although often energetic, are essentially non-developmental. These are deliberately, and at times quite harshly, juxtaposed against one another. However, using compositional devices that are perhaps more suggestive of traditional notions of musical narrative or development, devices such as functional harmonic progressions, melody, cadence and variation, there are particular layers to the work which are intended to add threads of continuity amidst the otherwise chaotic surface.

RYAN LATIMER (b.1990) is a composer currently based in London. His music has been performed throughout the UK and Europe and has also featured in a number of festivals including Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Sounds New, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, New Generation Arts, Nonclassical and Frontiers Plus.

Ryan studied with Joe Cutler and Michael Wolters at Birmingham Conservatoire, where he graduated receiving the Musicians’ Union Bill Warman Award, Bachelor of Music Award and Composition Prize. With support from the AHRC, he is currently pursuing a PhD at the Royal Academy of Music, with guidance from Philip Cashian and Michael Finnissy.

He is currently Composer-in-Association with the Workers Union Ensemble as well as an associate composer for the London Symphony Orchestra’s Soundhub project. He was one of six composers to participate in the LSO Panufnik Scheme, which in 2013 saw the premiere of his new work for the orchestra. His recent work Divertimento, written for the Britten Sinfonia, was premiered at Wigmore Hall and later broadcast on BBC Radio 3. And in May 2013, he was one of six featured composers at the Austrian Cultural Forum’s Soundings Festival. In 2011, he was awarded 1st prize at the Young Composers Meeting, Netherlands, and was subsequently commissioned to write a larger work for Dutch ensemble Orkest de Ereprijs. As a participant in the International Composer Pyramid, his piece, Beta and Tau, written for the ICP Ensemble, was performed in the UK and France during December 2010. His music is available from Composers Edition. ryanlatimer.com

LORE LIXENBERG mezzo-soprano

Mezzo-soprano Loré Lixenberg’s rich experiences in contemporary music theatre include performing the lead role in Bent Sørensen’s opera Under Himlen at Copenhagen’s Royal Opera House as well as taking part in many projects with Théâtre de Complicité.

She has sung throughout Europe at numerous festivals, including Wien Modern, Oslo’s Ultima and the festivals in Salzburg, Lucerne, Edinburgh, Witten, Donaueschingen and Aldeburgh, and performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, the Ensemble InterContemporain, Klangforum Wien, BCMG, the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Apartment House.

She featured in the Channel 4 documentary What made Mozart tick and most recently in Kombat Opera Presents…, a set of six television comedy operas commissioned from Richard Thomas by BBC2. Loré Lixenberg sang the main female operatic role in Richard Thomas’ award-winning Jerry Springer – The Opera at the Edinburgh Festival, the National Theatre and in London’s West End, and on CD. www.lorelixenberg.net

SARAH NICOLLS piano

Sarah Nicolls is a UK-based experimental pianist, at the forefront of innovations in piano performance. She works with interactive technologies, such as body sensors and motion capture to augment the acoustic piano, bringing it into the realm of electronic music with visceral live performances. Sarah also invented the ‘Inside-out Piano’, a sculptural feast of an instrument designed to be played inside and out. She has recorded her own music on it and has been funded through the Athena Swan scheme to have the second prototype built by Pierre Malbos.

In the rest of her concert career, Sarah is a frequent soloist with the London Sinfonietta, giving world premieres such as Larry Goves’ piano concerto Things that are blue... and Richard Barrett’s Mesoptamia. She is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and features on several CDs, including Philip Cashian’s The House of Night on NMC.

Sarah is a Senior Lecturer at Brunel University and has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Brunel Research Initiative and Enterprise Fund (BRIEF), the Athena Swan award and Arts Council England. She writes about live electronics and compositional collaborations and has been published in the Leonardo Music Journal (LMJ20). Artistic Director of the BEAM Festival, Sarah was also the Music Chair for NIME 2014, London. sarahnicolls.com

OREN MARSHALL tuba

Oren Marshall is a pioneering player of acoustic tuba and electric tuba who, crossing between classical, jazz, improvised and world music, has collaborated with the likes of Derek Bailey, Charlie Haden, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Moondog, Radiohead, Hermeto Pascoal, the Pan-African Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He has played with every major orchestra in London as well as with the Bolshoi Theatre Soloists, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Ballet. As a member of London Brass (which he joined in 1987) he has made numerous recordings, toured worldwide several times, played six Proms concerts and performed for the Queen, Prince Charles, the German Chancellor, the President of China and the Pope. Amongst the many duos Oren has played are performances with jazz pianist John Taylor, beatboxers Adam Matta, Shlomo and Hobbit, prepared-piano player Hauschka, percussionist Evelyn Glennie and multi award-winning vocalist, Bobby Mcferrin.

As a solo artist, Oren has played all over the world and his ground-breaking solo work lead to multiple nominations for the BBC Innovation in Jazz Award. He has also shared the stage with artists such as Gil Scott Heron, Roy Ayers, Moby, Vinicio Caposella, Murcoff, Tomasz Stanko and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. He leads and writes for the Charming Transport Band, bringing together master musicians from Ghana and Nigeria and innovators from London’s jazz and improvised music scenes. Oren is currently Head of Brass Studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, London and teaches on the Leadership course at the Guildhall School of Music and on the Jazz course at the Royal Academy of Music. orenmarshall.com

LONDON SINFONIETTA

John Orford bassoon/ contrabassoon Simon Blendis violin Joan Atherton violin Zoe Matthews viola Sally Pendlebury cello Enno Senft double bass Oliver Lowe percussion Ian Watson accordion

The London Sinfonietta's mission is to place the best contemporary classical music at the heart of today's culture; engaging and challenging the public through inspiring performances of the highest standard, and taking risks to develop new work and talent.

The ensemble is Resident Orchestra at Southbank Centre with headquarters at Kings Place, and continues to take the best contemporary music to venues and festivals across the UK and worldwide with a busy touring schedule. Since its inaugural concert in 1968 – giving the world premiere of Sir John Tavener's The Whale – the London Sinfonietta's commitment to making new music has seen it commission over 300 works, and premiere many hundreds more.

The core of the London Sinfonietta is 18 Principal Players, representing some of the best solo and ensemble musicians in the world. The ensemble has just launched its Emerging Artists Programme, which will give professional musicians at the start of promising and brilliant careers the opportunity to work alongside those Principal Players on stage across the season.

The London Sinfonietta's recordings present a catalogue of 20th-century classics, on numerous prestigious labels as well as the ensemble's own London Sinfonietta Label. www.londonsinfonietta.org.uk

SOUND INTERMEDIA

SIMON HENDRY (tracks 3, 6 and 8) DAN HALFORD (track 8)

Sound Intermedia – founded by Ian Dearden and David Sheppard – is dedicated to realising visionary new art works through live performance and cutting-edge technology. Their trail-blazing initiatives and artistic collaborations continually push past the accepted boundaries of composition, sound design, live sound, music technology and interactive multimedia. Internationally respected both as composers and performers, they collaborate with many of the world's most influential artists and organizations. www.soundintermedia.co.uk

GARRY WALKER conductor

Winner of the 1999 Leeds Conductor’s Competition, Scottish-born Garry Walker studied cello and conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music. He is now Visiting Professor of Conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Garry Walker was Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (2003–2007), Principal Conductor of Paragon Ensemble and now enjoys a close association with Red Note Ensemble Scotland’s première contemporary music ensemble.

In the UK Garry Walker has worked with all the BBC orchestras, the Hallé, National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, London Sinfonietta, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Chamber orchestras have included the Northern Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra and Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields. With SCO he has appeared at the St Magnus Festival, with the ECO in Lisbon and the City of London Festival and with ASMF at the Barbican’s Mostly Mozart Festival.

Outside the UK he has appeared with the Nieuw Ensemble, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Utah Symphony Orchestra. Amongst the many international soloists with whom Garry Walker has collaborated are Maxim Vengerov, Truls Mørk, Mischa Maisky, James Ehnes, David Geringas and Branford Marsalis.

An experienced opera conductor, Garry Walker conducted a new production of Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen for Garsington Opera in 2014; among is other opera engagements are Britten’s Curlew River and the world première of Stuart MacRae’s opera The Assassin Tree at Edinburgh International Festival, and Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart for English National Opera. www.garrywalker.net

These tracks were recorded at Studio 1, University of Surrey, Guildford on 19-22 August 2014.

Recording Engineer and Producer DAVID LEFEBER

Next Wave has received generous support from:

Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation The Fenton Arts Trust The Helen Hamlyn Trust Help Musicians UK Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust Stanley Picker Trust The Steel Charitable Trust

For more information visit www.nmcrec.co.uk/next-wave www.soundandmusic.org/nextwave

NMC Recordings is a charitable company (reg. no. 328052) established for the recording of contemporary music by the Holst Foundation; it is grateful for funding from Arts Council England, the Britten-Pears Foundation and The Delius Trust.

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Catalogue number: NMC DL209 (P) 2014 NMC Recordings Ltd • © 2014 NMC Recordings Ltd