PROFESSOR BAD TRIP UPROAR WALES NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE

UPROAR.org.uk @UPROAR_Wales “…virtuosic, exuberant and playful” **** On UPROAR’s 10x10, The Guardian 2018.

UPROAR Funders 2019-2020 We would like to thank our funders and supporters who made this programme possible:

Arts Council of Wales Diaphonique Foyle Foundation Garfi eld Weston Foundation Hinrichsen Foundation Italian Cultural Institute Oakdale Trust PRS Foundation The Stafford House Foundation Tŷ Cerdd RVW Trust Wales Arts International

Donations Private donation in memory of Peter Reynolds Peter Golob Pyrenees Cycle Ride Fund Sally Groves Professor Mick Peake

UPROAR gratefully acknowledges the kind support of Electroacoustic Wales, Tessa Shellens, Michael Ellison, Andrew Rafferty

Charity Registration Number: 1174587

The Oakdale Trust ABOUT UPROAR UPROAR is the new contemporary music ensemble for Wales. Led by conductor Michael Rafferty, the ensemble comprises some of the UK’s most accomplished musicians specialising in new music. Committed and hungry to bring the most raw, adventurous and imaginative new music from Welsh and international composers to audiences in Wales and the UK.

Professor Bad Trip is the second project from UPROAR which launched in 2018 with its inaugural sell-out performance in Cardiff and gained critical acclaim in local and national press.

UPROAR Artistic Director & Conductor Michael Rafferty Michael Rafferty, founder of UPROAR, is an award winning conductor based in South Wales. Passionate about contemporary culture, he conducts the world’s fi nest contemporary music ensembles and has collaborated with over 100 living composers. He co-founded Music Theatre Wales and was its Music Director for 25 years. He was awarded an MBE in 2016 for services to music in Wales.

PROGRAMME Sarah Lianne Lewis we watch it burn* Lichtbogen** Bethan Morgan-Williams Devil’s Elbow* INTERVAL Tristan Murail Winter Fragments** Andrew Lewis Canzon in Double Echo* Fausto Romitelli Professor Bad Trip: Lesson III**

RUNNING TIME Approx 1hr 45 mins including interval

*World premiere **Welsh premiere An audio version of the programme is available online, composer notes are also available online and at each venue. Visit uproar.org.uk ENSEMBLE Flute Richard Craig (Except 13th March) Joanna Shaw (13th March) Michael Whight /Soprano Torbjorn Hultmark Electric Guitar James Woodrow /Keyboard Siwan Rhys Keyboard Bethan Morgan-Williams Percussion Julian Warburton Harp Manon Morris Violin 1 Miranda Fulleylove Violin 2 Philippa Mo Viola Fiona Winning Cello Deni Teo Bass/Electric Bass Guitar Alan Taylor

Conductor Michael Rafferty Live Electronics Andrew Lewis (Electroacoustic Wales) Tom Rydeard (Electroacoustic Wales) Sarah Lianne Lewis Bethan Morgan-Williams

Lighting Ceri James

Ensemble Manager Charlotte Templeman (Except 25th April) Laura Sheldon (25th April)

Marketing Suzanne Carter Tabitha Milne Press Hazel Hardy Administrator Caroline Tress

Board Professor Michael Ellison Sally Groves MBE Professor Mick Peake COMMISSIONED COMPOSERS FROM WALES Sarah Lianne Lewis Prize (RPS – 2017-8); the Christopher we watch it burn (Jan 2020) Brooks Composition Prize (Young Composer in Residence with the Studied at University of Wales, Cardiff RLPO) (2015-7); and the LSO Panufnik BA (Hons) 2:1 in Music & History Scheme (2015-6). She was shortlisted MMus in Composition. for ISCM World Music Days (2019 & Sarah has previously worked with the 2020); a Paul Hamlyn Award (2017); BBC National of Wales, and Manchester Jazz Festival’s Irwin Quatuor Bozzini, JACK Quartet and Mitchell Prize (2014). Mivos Quartet, UPROAR, and soprano Sarah Maria Sun, and her music has been performed in a number of Andrew Lewis UK and European music festivals, Canzon in Double Echo (Jan 2020) including Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Andrew Lewis studied composition Heidelberg Frühling Festival, with Jonty Harrison at the University soundfestival, Musiikin Aika, Festival of Birmingham, where he was one of de Royaumont, Archipel Festival and the founding members of BEAST. He Lucerne Festival. is Professor of Composition at Bangor University, where he also directs the Electroacoustic Music Studios. Bethan Morgan-Williams Devil’s Elbow (Nov 2019) His music has been awarded prizes in France, Sweden, Austria, Bethan Morgan-Williams Hungary, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, (1992-) is a Welsh composer and the UK. Recent projects include based in Montgomeryshire. ‘Lebenslieder’ for chamber orchestra She composes instrumental, and electronics, which includes the vocal and electronic music for voices of people with dementia and people of all ages and abilities, their partners who care for them. His fi nding motivation through the chamber work ‘Etude aux objets’ was simple urge to provide performers commissioned by UPROAR for the with new and exciting music. inaugural project 10 x 10. His scores Described as “marvellously oblique are published by Composers Edition and obscure” [5against4] while (UK) and his acousmatic music by being “rooted in something ancient Empreintes DIGITALes (Canada). and folky” [The Telegraph], Bethan’s music is fl uid and expressive. In her short composing career, Bethan has accrued a signifi cant number of prestigious awards, including a Leverhulme Scholarship (2018- 9); the Susan Bradshaw Composer COMPOSERS OF THE OTHER WORKS IN THE PROGRAMME Tristan Murail Kaija Saariaho Winter Fragments (2000) Lichtbogen (1986) Born in Le Havre in 1947, Tristan Kaija Saariaho is a prominent member Murail received advanced degrees of a group of Finnish artists who are in classical and North African Arabic making a worldwide impact. She from the Ecole Nationale des Langues studied in Helsinki, Fribourg and Paris. Orientales Vivantes, as well as a degree in economic science, while At IRCAM, Kaija developed at the same time pursuing his musical techniques of computer-assisted studies. In 1967, he became a student composition and acquired fl uency of at the Paris in working on tape and with live Conservatory, and also studied at the electronics. Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris. Kaija’s work includes Verblendungen In 1971, he was awarded the Prix (1984), Du Cristal (1989), and …à la de Rome, and later received a First Fumée (1990), Orion (2004), Laterna Prize in composition from the Paris Magica (2008) and (2008). Conservatory. Her catalogue also includes Aile He co-founded the Ensemble du songe (2001), L’Itineraire with a group of young (2006), D’OM LE VRAI SENS (2010), composers and instrumentalists in (2014). In 2015, Gerald 1973. The ensemble quickly gained Finley and wide recognition for its fundamental Orchestra, conducted by Gustavo research in the area of instrumental Dudamel, premiered for performance and live electronics. baritone and orchestra.

In the 1980s, Tristan Murail used From later nineties, Saariaho has computer technology to further turned to opera, with outstanding his research in the analysis and success: L’Amour de Loin (2000), synthesis of acoustic phenomena. Adrian Mater (2006), Emilie (2010) He developed his own system of and the oratorio La Passion de microcomputer-assisted composition, Simone (2006). Her opera Only and then collaborated with Ircam the Sound Remains was premiered for several years, where he taught in March 2016 at The Dutch National composition, and took part in the Opera. Other performances will conception of the computer-assisted follow in Paris, Helsinki, Madrid composition program “Patchwork”. and Toronto. In 1997, Tristan Murail was named Saariaho has claimed the major professor of composition at Columbia composing awards: Grawemeyer University in New York, teaching there Award, Wihuri Prize, Nemmers Prize, until 2010. Sonning Prize, Polar Music Prize. Kaija Saariaho’s harp concerto Trans 2000), blending distorted colorations was premiered in August 2016 by of acoustic and electric instruments Xavier de Maistre and The Tokyo as well as accessories like the mirliton Symphony Orchestra, conducted and harmonica, was inspired by by Ernest Martinez-Izquierdo at the Henri Michaux’s writings under the Suntory Hall, Tokyo. infl uence of psychedelic drugs, and recreates a hallucinatory atmosphere.

Fausto Romitelli Professor Bad Trip: Lesson III (2000) One of the most promising of the young generation of Italian composers, Fausto Romitelli, born in Gorizia in 1963, died prematurely in 2004 after a long illness.

He fi rst studied under at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and later at the Scuola Civica in Milan. His works include: Ganimede (1986), for alto, and Kû (1989), for 14 musicians.

In the 1990s, he continued his investigations of sound at Ircam in Paris, and with the musicians of L’Itinéraire—Tristan Murail, Gérald Grisey, Michael Lévinas and Hugues Dufourt.

Anything but a formalist composer, Romitelli did not shy away from hybridization, breaking down the barrier between art music and popular music. Distortion, saturation, psychedelic rock—inspired compositions and “dirty” harmonies were part of his musical universe, evident in Acid Dreams & Spanish Queens (1994), for amplifi ed ensemble, EnTrance (1995), and Cupio Dissolvi (1996). The Professor Bad Trip cycle (I, II and III, 1998— 28.02.2020 – 7.30pm Chapter Cardiff chapter.org 029 2030 4400

13.03.2020 – 8pm Aberystwyth Arts Centre aberystwythartscentre.co.uk 01970 62 32 32

21.03.2020 – 7.30pm Galeri, Caernarfon galericaernarfon.com 01286 685 222

25.04.2020 – 4pm Bristol New Music Festival Victoria Rooms, University of Bristol bristolnewmusic.org

03.06.2020 – 7pm Festival KLANG! électroacoustique Opéra Comédie, Salle Molière Montpellier, France opera-orchestre-montpellier.fr