new music · new dance

Gavin Higgins Atomic Café Mark Bowden Airs No Oceans Keep Cheryl Frances-Hoad The Madness Industry Kate Whitley Duo for Violin and Viola Quinta Themistocles is Captured Flux 1 Gavin Higgins Atomic Café 11’16 Rambert Orchestra · Paul Hoskins conductor 2 Mark Bowden Airs No Oceans Keep 14’28 Fidelio Trio 3 Cheryl Frances-Hoad The Madness Industry 9’36 Onyx Brass 4 Kate Whitley Duo for Violin and Viola 11’04 Eloisa-Fleur Thom violin · Asher Zaccardelli viola Quinta Themistocles is Captured 5 I A Ship for Asia Minor 3’14 6 II I have with me two Gods 2’08 7 III The Likely and the Rich 3’27 Quinta violin, magnetic resonator piano, electronics Total timing: 55’46 photo © Johan Persson Introduction from Paul Hoskins Rambert Music Director

When I thought up the idea of a Rambert Music Fellowship in 2009, I had nothing more than a hunch that Rambert could be an interesting and inspiring place for a composer to be for a year. Since then, the fi ve composers featured on this album have helped to make the fellowship what it is today: a scheme widely admired for the way it supports new music and new dance, and facilitates connections between artists in different fi elds. Mini-residencies and associated projects have also proliferated under Rambert’s fellowship umbrella. Dozens of brilliant ideas have been brought in through the doors of our studios, collided with the people there, and allowed to bubble away. Some of the results have disappeared into the ether, some have had short lives in studio performances, others have been immortalised in established dance works or musical scores and recordings. Collaboration is a diffi cult thing in any walk of life, and it can take many forms. Things that can infl uence the process include the personality of the participants, the scale and context of the project, and past experience. Good teams usually include people who have both strong ideas and the confi dence to listen to others. Composers, choreographers, dancers and musicians all benefi t from being given time and support to develop their practice and to mature. As organisations we can similarly improve our ability to commission work effectively, if we have the confi dence to be patient, develop long-term relationships, and work alongside composers throughout their careers. Enjoy the range of work on display here, and please feel welcome to dance in response.

3 Note by Jenny Gilbert

It may be necessary to clear up some hands. One of those versions stuck, misconceptions about music for dance. and Frederick Ashton’s La Valse (‘The For a start, there’s nothing very special Waltz’) – set to the very music rejected about it. One person writes some music, by Diaghilev, with not a note changed – another some choreography, and these is still some 70 years later performed activities may happen simultaneously around the world. or months or even years apart. There Is some music especially danceable may be a great deal of discussion and other music less so? The story (‘collaboration’) between creatives of La Valse would suggest that (with the set designer in on it too), or perceived suitability is more a matter of there may be very little. It was Serge temperament, fashion and expectation. Diaghilev, the business brains behind the Nor does a dance score need to have a phenomenal Ballets Russes company strong rhythmic drive (though many do). some 100 years ago, who fi rst hit on What is crucial, most choreographers the idea of bringing together upcoming would agree, is that the music should music talents with the choreographers possess an interesting and distinct of short ballets. A young unknown by character, whatever that character may the name of Igor Stravinsky was one of be. The compositions on this disc are his discoveries. He wasn’t unknown for very different one from another, they are much longer. written for different forces, they sprang from different points of inspiration. What Not all Diaghilev’s hunches hit the spot, they share is an abundance of character, though. He commissioned an orchestral and a commitment to excellence on the piece from a Frenchman named Maurice part of each composer. Ravel and pronounced it “undanceable”. Some years later that score was picked It was on a visit to Manchester’s up and re-choreographed by various Imperial War Museum that composer

4 Gavin Higgins found the germ of note chord. From this chord emerges his inspiration for Atomic Café. On much of the material in the piece, and display were a number of British Civil the insistent buzz of clashing semitones Defence public information videos throughout suggests a landscape of from the 1970s giving practical, yet in treeless desolation. all likelihood quite useless, advice on Although writing for a smallish ensemble, surviving a nuclear attack. Researching pitch and dynamics are pushed to the topic further, Higgins came upon the 1982 documentary fi lm The Atomic the limits, demanding considerable Café, a blackly comic compilation of virtuosity, not least from the horn player similarly misleading American archive who is required to execute swooping material from the 1940s, 50s and early demisemiquaver runs, marked each 60s. Typically, a US Army training fi lm time with the instruction “fff blazing”. declares: “Viewed from a safe distance Elsewhere, contrabassoon and bass [sic], the atomic bomb is one of the clarinet are pushed to their most gravelly most beautiful sights ever seen by man”. register with violent eruptions marked Higgins now had his theme, and its “ff honky”. The work ends with a return sardonic tone. to the material of the opening bars and fi nishes in a haze of glassy string Thus Atomic Café is a work that harmonics. explores both the horror of nuclear Armageddon and the tragi-comedy Mark Bowden wrote Airs No Oceans of the complacency surrounding the Keep, for piano, violin and cello, in 2009. prospect of it. The piece opens with “When writing a string quartet,” he says, a long-held unison D that gradually you’re working with a homogenous blurs into its neighbouring semitones, soundworld, one where the instruments eventually unravelling into a pulsing fi ve- blend with or at least balance each other.

5 A piano trio is quite a different beast. create his material from this severely Dynamics, texture, ensuring that each restricted number of notes. voice has its own space, its own light, all Representing the sea, sudden crashes demand consideration.” and melodic fl urries whip up a three- His starting point was Emily Dickinson’s part storm. Between these colouristic poem ‘I Think that the Root of the Wind extremes the musical material surges is Water’. Within a few lines, the poet as if riding an ocean swell – sometimes considers the elements and refl ects rippling, free and calm, at other times on the sound of the wind: ‘It would not tumultuous and climactic. Fragments of sound so deep / Were it a fi rmamental sea shanty and fi shermen’s song offer product … There is a maritime conviction glimpses of human life at sea. There are / In the atmosphere’. no quotations as such, merely suggestive folk elements and a kind of dancing The composer set himself the task of energy. exploring oceanic weather, contrasting and blending airy sounds with those In contrast, Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s The suggesting a body of water, chasing Madness Industry resists the impulse the elusive point where one ends and to tell a story. The piece was inspired the other begins. A through-composed by Jon Ronson’s best-selling book The work in contrasting sections, it contains Psychopath Test, in which the author two dominant musical ideas. The light meets and talks to psychopaths and the and airy element is summoned by the professionals who diagnose them, and use of natural string harmonics – fl uting, suggests how to spot a psychopath from ethereal sounds produced by the player a bullet-point checklist. The tone of the lightly bowing an unstopped string at book is humorous but it asks serious specifi c points along its length. Since questions about how we defi ne normality only certain notes are available as in a world where slight eccentricity is natural harmonics on the violin and cello, seen as an entertaining asset – in reality Bowden’s greatest challenge was to TV, for example.

6 Frances-Hoad’s piece for brass quintet The pair’s inspiration was a sculpture (two trumpets, horn, trombone and called ‘Wrestlers’, by Henri Gaudier tuba) is not programmatic, but instead Brzeska, in which two fi gures are applies some of the characteristics of interlocked. Their “wrestle” could almost the typical psychopath to the process of be a dance, their pose striking a balance composition. Harmony is “manipulated”, between force and elegance and it’s not chords gradually transformed; calm easy to tell whether they are fi ghting textures and plangent melodies are or embracing one another. Whitley’s disrupted by sudden, violent outbursts; composition proposes the two musicians frequent changes of time signature are as the two dancing/wrestling fi gures, jittery and unsettling, the pace overall each line built on a trill-like fi gure – is relentless, what we might call “mad”. variable in both interval and tempi. Instructions to the players are detailed These two lines sometimes make a joint and highly specifi c, suggesting materials statement, vibrating peaceably in parallel. for home-made mutes and how they At other times one takes a secondary are to be applied. If the piece has any role, the trill continuing as a barely recognisable forbear, it is Stravinsky’s discernable support – like a cushion of writing for the warring fairground puppets in his ballet Petrushka. quivering air – beneath a slow, sustained melody. Violin and viola also engage in Kate Whitley’s Duo for Violin and Viola competition, conveying a delicate inner was was written for a choreography by tension, before settling back into their Rambert company member Malgorzata unruffl ed trills. Dzierzon in 2015. Whitley remembers it as a particularly rewarding collaboration: The title of Themistocles Is Captured “I felt the music gave the dance space suggests Ancient Greece, and indeed to speak and vice versa. I think this was the names of the three short movements because we took a shared inspiration of Quinta’s piece refer directly to the and created the dance and the music adventures and sayings of this historical separately.” fi gure, the creator of Athenian sea

7 power around 480 BC. Yet the title was The MRP was invented by Dr Andrew originally suggested by the autocorrect McPherson, Reader in Digital Media function on a phone. Quinta (stage at Queen Mary University London. He name of composer Katherine Mann) was allowed Quinta access to the MRP for texting a friend about some technical a day, and this piece is the result. Each element of the recording of this piece movement explores a particular sound or when the words “and the music is set of sounds unique to the instrument. captured” came out as “Themistocles is Alongside the MRP, there is a single captured”. In a blink, she had her title and violin – sometimes speaking in its her theme! Given our increasing reliance natural, acoustic voice, at other times on electronic communication, such processed to sound quite different. The interventions will surely become more composer comments: “Manipulating common. the sound of an instrument in this The otherworldly sounds in the piece way adds movement, texture, and the are more obviously the product of kind of rich and unusual detail that electronics, including the Magnetic makes composing feel tactile, a bit like Resonator Piano (MRP), an acoustic sculpture.” She used a technique drawn piano with a series of electro-magnets from improvisation to build many of set along its strings. On a regular piano, the string lines, “sampling” elements of the strings sound as a result of being improvised passages for use in the fi nal struck by felt-tipped hammers. In the composition. MRP, the magnets induce the strings of the instrument to vibrate independently of the hammers, creating a range of beautiful effects not achievable with hammer-action alone. Infi nite sustain can be achieved, along with pitch bends, harmonics, and various new timbres. © 2017 Jenny Gilbert

8 Gavin Higgins Symphony (2009), What Wild Ecstasy (2012), Gloucester born Gavin Diversions After Benjamin Higgins comes from a Britten (2013) and The long lineage of brass band Ruins of Detroit (2015). musicians, dating back to The premiere recording of 1895. Growing up in the Dark Arteries has also won Forest of Dean, he followed the British Bandsman CD an initial musical training in of the year award, Brass the family brass band, with Band World CD of the studies of french horn and award and the 4barsrest CD composition at Chethams and Newcomer of the year School of Music, the Royal award. Gavin was recently Northern College of Music awarded the Herbert Whitely and the Royal College of Award for Creativity. Music with Gary Carpenter and Kenneth Hesketh. Recent successes includes performances of Tänze by In 2010 he was appointed the London Philharmonic GGavinavin HHigginsiggins oonn NNMCMC Rambert Dance Company’s Orchestra; the premiere of Inaugural Music Fellow. his ‘striking’ (The Guardian) What Wild Ecstasy This appointment has led piano trio, The Ruins of NMC DL2012-16 to the ‘blasting, warping Detroit – commissioned by (New Music 20x12) score’ (The Guardian) of, the Britten Pears Foundation Rambert Orchestra What Wild Ecstasy, and and performed by the Fidelio Paul Hoskins conductor more recently the innovative Trio at the Cheltenham and ambitious, RPS Music Festival; and the premiere Three Broken Love Songs Awards nominated, Dark of the ‘fast, exciting and NMC D139 (Prism) Arteries. The ballet was brilliantly scored’ (The Mark Simpson clarinet premiered at Sadler’s Wells Telegraph), Velocity – by Rambert. commissioned by the BBC Diversions after Benjamin Britten NMC D226 to open the Last Night of the Awards include BASCA (War Memorials) 2014 Proms. British Composer Award Tredegar Town Band nominations for A Forest www.gavinhiggins.com Ian Porthouse conductor

9 Mark Bowden and electronics, (Rambert photo © Kate Benjamin & Rob Orchard Dance Company), We Have Mark fi rst came to public Found a Better Land attention in 2006 when he (BBC was awarded the Royal National Chorus of Wales), Philharmonic Society The Soul Candle, for Composition Prize for his baritone and piano (Jeremy fi rst orchestral commission, Huw Williams). Mark has Sudden Light (BBC also created vocal works Symphony Orchestra). for the stage including The Further orchestral Mare’s Tale for narrator and commissions followed ensemble (Arts Council of before being appointed Wales). His abiding interest Resident Composer in dance has resulted in with the BBC National much collaboration with Orchestra of Wales in choreographers. 2011, a post he held for Born in South Wales four years resulting in a in 1979, Mark studied of Cambridge (with the series of major new works, composition with Richard Camberwell Composers’ including a cello concerto Steinitz and Julian Anderson Collective), the Visby (Lyra), a percussion at Huddersfi eld University International Centre for concerto (Heartland) and and the Royal College Composers in Sweden a 40-minute cantata for of Music. He continued and the MacDowell Colony soprano, baritone, chorus his studies at Dartington in the US. His music is and orchestra (A Violence and on the Britten-Pears performed at festivals and of Gifts). Young Artist Programme, events throughout the UK, Mark’s growing catalogue at Aldeburgh. He has Europe and the US and of chamber and vocal music enjoyed residencies and can be heard regularly on includes Five Memos for fellowships with BBC radio stations around the violin and piano (London National Orchestra of world. Mark is currently Music Masters), Parable for Wales, Rambert Dance Reader in Composition at solo saxophone (London Company, Aldeburgh Music, Royal Holloway, University Sinfonietta), Lines Written a Handel House Museum, of London and chair of Few Miles Below for violin Kettle’s Yard, University the British section of the

10 International Society for compensate for her chronic photo © Brant Tilds Photography Contemporary Music. In shyness through composing 2015 he was awarded remained unquashed. At 15 the Welsh Music Guild’s she won the BBC Young Glanville Jones Award and in Composer of the Year 2016 he received a BASCA Competition, and it was British Composer Award for during the fi rst performance Five Memos. of her Concertino for www.markbowden.net Cello, Piano, Percussion and Orchestra, by cellist Peter Dixon and the BBC MMarkark BBowdenowden oonn NNMCMC Philharmonic that she Sudden Light NMC D214 became convinced that her Oliver Coates cello life had to be in composition. Julian Warburton percussion Twenty years on, Cheryl’s BBC National Orchestra of Wales Grant Llewellyn conductor obsessive dedication, Hyeyoon Park violin imperviousness to rejection, Huw Watkins piano inherent thriftiness and endless stamina for fi lling music, reaching audiences Parable NMC DL3016 in funding applications has (Sinfonietta Shorts) from the Proms to outreach resulted in her working full Simon Haram saxophone workshops. time as a composer. She has a Double First from Cheryl’s music has Cheryl Frances-Hoad Cambridge University, a PhD been described as ‘like Cheryl wrote her fi rst piece from Kings College London, a declaration of faith in within weeks of taking up has been awarded many the eternal verities of the cello aged 7, and despite prizes and scholarships, composition’ (The Times), some early disasters (her and was the 2012 Music with ‘a voice overfl owing not fi rst string orchestra piece Fellow at Rambert Dance only with ideas, but also with was thrown out by the Company. Her output the discipline and artistry school conductor due to addresses all genres from necessary to harness them’ mistakes in her hand-copied opera, ballet and concerto (The Scotsman). Classical parts) Cheryl’s desire to to song, chamber and solo tradition, along with diverse

11 contemporary inspirations photo © Ambra Vernuccio including literature, painting, and dance have contributed to a creative presence provocatively her own. Her works include From the Beginning of the World, a setting of Tycho Brahe’s remarkably prescient thesis on the Great Comet of 1577 (BBC Proms, 2015), Pay Close Attention, a homage to electronic music gods The Prodigy, The Whole Earth Dances, a quintet infl uenced by the local landscape and the poetry of Ted Hughes Kate Whitley and was described as ‘a (Spitalfi elds Festival, 2016) remarkable feat, with a Kate Whitley (b. 1989) is and Game On, a duet for genuine emotional gravity’ a composer and pianist piano and Commodore 64 (The Telegraph). She has based in South London. inspired by Game Theory been hailed as a ‘remarkable She runs The Multi-Story and the crimes of bankers and innovative young Orchestra with Christopher (Nonclassical, Dalston musician’ (Seen and Heard Stark, which is based in Victoria, 2016). International), and her music a car park in Peckham as described as ‘uniquely www. cherylfranceshoad.co.uk part of Bold Tendencies. sensitive’ (Bachtrack) She won a 2014 Borletti- and ‘powerfully moving’ Buitoni Trust Special Award (Edinburgh Fringe Review). and a 2013 Sky Academy Futures Fund Bursary. Her She was 2013 Music 2014 piece Alive to words Fellow at Rambert Dance by Holly McNish won a Company and 2015 New British Composers Award Music Programmer at

12 Kettle’s Yard Art Gallery. Quinta Her music for Flight by Quinta is an experimental choreographer Malgorzata music-maker and multi- Dzierzon for Rambert toured instrumentalist, with the UK in 2016. Her opera particular interests in Paws and Padlocks with improvisation, non- librettist Sabrina Mahfouz conventional scoring, was commissioned by electronic interfacing Blackheath Opera for and new instruments. their community opera She explores extended programme and is about techniques (mainly for two children who get strings) and graphic trapped in a zoo overnight. notation, and she mainly Her piece Speak out, using plays keyboards, violin, viola, words taken from Malala and musical saw, but dips Yousafzai’s 2013 UN into a bigger box of tricks speech, was commissioned including lever harp, ukelele, by the BBC for International clarinet, recorder, melodica, Women’s Day 2017. and glockenspiel when www. katewhitley.net adventures call. co-founder of Music in Detention and a long-time She was 2015/16 Music KKateate WWhitleyhitley oonn NNMCMC collaborator with Music in Fellow at Rambert Dance Prisons. She also writes for Company, and is one of the I am I say NMC D229 dance, circus, theatre, TV three British Council/PRS The Multi-Story Orchestra and fi lm. Christopher Stark conductor 2016/17 China Musicians- Choirs from Kender, Lyndhurst in-Residence. She was www.quinta.me and John Donne Primary Schools Ashley Riches bass Sarah-Jane Lewis soprano Shiry Rashkovsky viola Information about the artists on this disc can be Kate Whitley piano found on NMC’s website: Rolf Hind piano www.nmcrec.co.uk

13 THANK YOU SUPPORT NMC RECORDINGS PRODUCERS’ CIRCLE Anonymous, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Anthony Bolton, Luke As a charity NMC is non-profi t-making, providing Gardiner, Jonathan Goldstein, Nicholas and Judith Goodison, public benefi t through the contribution our work Vladimir Jurowski, Ralph Kanza, George Law, Colin Matthews, makes to enriching cultural life. Our ability James and Anne Rushton, Richard Steele, Charlotte Stevenson, to record and promote the innovative, the Janis Susskind, Andrew Ward, Arnold Whittall. challenging, the obscure and the lost is reliant upon securing the support of individuals who are PRINCIPAL BENEFACTORS as passionate about new music as we are. Benjamin Bruce, Diana Burrell, Robin Chapman, Anton Cox, Brian Elias, Richard Fries, Michael Greenwald, Terry Holmes, Stephen Friends membership (£50 / £20 concession per Johns, Jeremy Marchant, Belinda Matthews, Robert McFarland, year) offers advance notice of NMC releases, a Kieron O’Hara, Tarik O’Regan, Duncan Tebbet, Christoph and quarterly newsletter, and invitations to selected NMC events including CD launches. Benefactors Marion Trestler, Peter Wakefi eld, Judith Weir, (£100) also receive up to 25% discount on NMC Hugh Wood. CDs, are credited in CD booklets, and invited to BENEFACTORS recording sessions. Principal Benefactors (£250+) Anonymous, Raj Arumugan, Peter Aylmer, Peter Baldwin, Sir Alan are additionally welcomed to an annual gathering, Bowness, Gabriel Bray, Tony Britten, Andrew Burn, Sally Cavender, with the opportunity to meet NMC composers. Michael Cayley, David Charlton, Susan Costello and Robert Clark, The NMC Producers’ Circle invites donations of Sheila Colvin, Steven Foster, Matthew Frost, Anthony Gilbert, £1,000+ to help us release particular hidden gems. Alexander Goehr, Jennifer Goodwin, Adam Gorb, Elaine Gould, It allows donors to gain an exclusive insight into Paul Griffi ths, David Gutman, Barry Guy, Matthew Harris, Robin and association with our work. Holloway, Helen Hughes, Norman Jacobs, Peter Jenkins, Alison and Kjeld Jensen, Ed Jones, Neil King QC, Liz Leach, Bertie Leigh, We welcome Corporate Friends (£500+ VAT) who Andrew Lockyer, Sally Marks, Prof Stephen McHanwell, Stephen seek to align themselves with NMC’s values of and Jackie Newbould, Dominic Nudd, Marina Ogilvy, Roy Parker, quality, creativity and innovation. Stephen Plaistow, Chris Potts, Ronald Powell, Lee Rodwell, Julian A gift in your Will is an enduring way to mark your Rushton, Keith Salway, Howard Saunders, Ian Sesnan FRSA, appreciation of NMC’s pioneering work and help Howard Skempton, David Smith, Kenneth Smith, Martin Staniforth, v us secure our future aspirations. Our individual Owen Toller, Kevin Turner, Hannah Vlcek, Anthony Whitworth-Jones. supporters ensure the breadth and ambition of our CORPORATE FRIENDS output; no gift is too small. City & Cambridge Consultancy, Faber Music, Freshfi elds Bruckhaus Please visit: www.nmcrec.co.uk/support-us Deringer LLP, The Incorporated Society of Musicians, The Music email: [email protected], Sales Group, Royal Philharmonic Society, Schott Music Ltd. or phone 020 7759 1826 for more information. NMC would like to thank Paul Hoskins and all at Rambert Dance Company for their assistance in the making of this album.

The Madness Industry and Atomic Café were recorded 13-14 June DISTRIBUTION 2016 at All Saints, East Finchley, London. Duo for Violin and Viola was NMC recordings are distributed worldwide in CD and download format. recorded 20 April 2016 at All Saints, Tooting London. Airs No Oceans For more information visit our website. Keep was recorded 19 February 2015 at Menuhin Hall, Yehudi Menuhin You can also purchase recordings direct from our online store School, Cobham, Surrey. www.nmcrec.co.uk DAVID LEFEBER Recording Engineer & Producer SUSANNE STANZELEIT Digital Editing FOR FURTHER DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT: Themistocles Is Captured was recorded during August 2016 at the Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London (MRP) and NMC Recordings Ltd in Quinta’s home studio. Somerset House, Third Floor, South Wing, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA QUINTA Recording Engineer & Producer Tel. +44 (0)20 7759 1827/8 • Fax. +44 (0)20 7759 1829 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.nmcrec.co.uk DAVID LEFEBER Mastering All rights of the manufacturer and owner of the recorded material COLIN MATTHEWS Executive Producer for NMC reserved. Unauthorised public performance, broadcasting and copying FRANCOIS HALL Graphic design of this recording prohibited. JOHAN PERSSON Cover photograph ® 2017 NMC Recordings Ltd © 2017 NMC Recordings Ltd Photograph: Flight - choreography by Malgorzata Dzierzon and music by Kate Whitley (A Rambert Production). Catalogue no.: NMC D232 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, The Boltini Trust and The Delius Trust. ANNE RUSHTON Executive Director ELEANOR WILSON General Manager GWENDOLYN TIETZE Head of Development ALEX WRIGHT Development and Projects Co-ordinator RACHEL WILMOT Label Assistant

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