17 October 2024

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Next February sees the world premiere of my new Clarinet Quintet, commissioned for the 100th anniversary of Ipswich Chamber Music Society. It is composed for Jonathan Leibovitz, a Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship Award artist, and ECHO Rising Stars Quatuor Agate. 

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The world premiere will be held in Ipswich on 22nd February, followed by further performances at Hoylake Chamber Music Society (24th February) and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (25th February). 

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1 October 2024

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The video of These Harmonious Colonies, beautifully produced by the WDR, is now available to watch here. 

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10 September 2024

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I'm extremely excited that Ensemble Modern and Raimonda Skabeikaitė will give the German premiere of To Shimmer, To Quiver, To Quake at Bockenheimer Depot, Frankfurt, on 3 December. 

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Tickets available here.

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31 August 2024

 

Today sees the world premiere of To Shimmer, To Quiver, To Quake at the Lucerne Festival, given by the extraordinary musicians of the International Ensemble Modern and Josephine Korda.

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31 August 2024

 

I was very happy to speak with Radio Télévision Suisse for their programme 'L'écho des pavanes'. The broadcast also contains an excerpt of These Harmonious Colonies. 

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Listen here.

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22 June 2024

 

Smorgaschord Festival 2024 is today!

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The day sees the extraordinary composer and clarinetist Mark Simpson as Artist in Focus, who plays music by Berio, Saariaho, Simpson, Messiaen and Lachenmann. The day also sees a recital of music fom the German Baroque by Charlotte Spruit.

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Smorgaschord 2025 will be held on 14 June—be sure to save the date!

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4 June 2024​

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The world premiere of These Harmonious Colonies will be broadcast today on WDR 3. You can also watch a video of the performance here. 

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1 May 2024

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Today sees the world premiere of my new piece for chamber choir and ensemble, These Harmonious Colonies, which will be given by the WDR Sinfonieorchester- und Chorakademie conducted by Gabriel Hollander. The piece, a kind of cantata, explores the events of the Wairau Affray of 1843. I would like to express my gratitude to the Vaughan Williams Foundation for their support for this project.

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The concert also features works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Samuel Barber. Tickets available here. 

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The concert will be broadcast on WDR 3 on 4 June 2024, and available to stream on YouTube. 

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12 January 2024

 

I am thrilled to be participating in this year's Lucerne Festival Academy, working with the International Ensemble Modern Academy and studying with the composers Wolfgang Rihm and Dieter Ammann.

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A new piece will be premiered at the Lucerne Festival on 31 August. Tickets and further information available here.

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1 January 2024

 

In January and February I am performing a series of concerts with cellist Eliza Millett entitled 'Fantasy and Fairy Tale'. The programme explores works for cello and piano, and sees us perform music by Leoš Janáček, Elisabeth Lutyens, Claude Vivier, Frederick Delius, Iannis Xenakis and Robert Schumann. 

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The concerts take us to Colchester, Oxford, London and Manchester's Stoller Hall, where we will also give some workshops at Chetham's School of Music as part of our involvement in the  Stoller Hall Emerging Artists scheme. We'd also like to express our gratitude to the Delius Trust for their support of this project.

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Further information here. 

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14 October 2023

 

A video of Like The Nightingale, in which I conduct the Danubia Orchestra Obuda, is available to watch here.

 

28 September 2023

 

The world premiere of my new piece for chamber orchestra, Like The Nightingale, will be given next week at the Budapest Music Center by the Danubia Orchestra Obuda and as a part of Péter Eötvös Foundation. Scored for the same ensemble as Ligeti's Chamber Concerto, the piece features an extensive obbligato part for oboe d'amore.

 

The concert will also feature ​music by Ramon Lazkano and György Ligeti.

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Further information is available here. 

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13 July 2023

 

The premiere of my new piece for wind quintet, Bunte Blätter, will be given by Ensemble ARS NOVA at the Église Sainte–Bernadette in Annecy, France, on 19 August as part of the European Creative Academy.

 

The concert will also feature music by Leoš Janáček, Benjamin Britten and Péter Eötvös.

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Further information is available here. 

 

 

23 June 2023

 

I'm greatly looking forward to the premiere of my new piece for the WDR Sinfonie- und Chorakadmie, which will be performed next season on 1 May at the KvB Saal im WDR Funkhaus, Köln, on 1 May 2024. The performance will be filmed and recorded by WDR. ​

 

Further information is available here. 

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17 June 2023

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Smorgaschord: Ligeti Day! is today! I am greatly looking forward to performing Debussy's Violin Sonata with Stephen Waarts, as well as a whole host of other exciting performances through the day. Further info here!

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10 March 2023

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We announced the programme for Smorgaschord 2023 today, which will be held in Oxford on 17 June. The day celebrates the music of György Ligeti, whose 100th anniversary it is this year. The festival features Danny Driver performing Ligeti, the world premiere of new pieces by Deidre McKay and Laurence Osborn (written especially for Ben Goldscheider and commissioned by Smorgaschord), the UK premiere of a new version of György Kurtág's Zwiegespräch performed by the Kleio Quartet and György Kurtág Jr., a feature on the Nigerian composer Joshua Uzoigwe, as well as UK premieres from Martin Suckling and Thomas Adès. 

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Tickets are available here!

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11 January 2023​

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My article 'Time Blown Up Here And There' is published today in TEMPO (Cambridge University Press). It is an analysis of Hans Abrahamsen's let me tell you, and is available to read here. 

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9 January 2023​

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On Sunday 15 January I perform in a Smorgaschord Collective concert at Pimlott Foundation in Essex. The music consists of music by Lachenmann, Lutyens, Thorvaldsdottir, Kurtág, Ligeti, Purcell, Kodály, and Mozart. Poetry by Hone Tuwhare, Salvatore Quasimodo, Gabriel Okara, Basho and Louis MacNiece will be read by Nicci Gerard, with paintings by Philippa Dow. 

 

Tickets are avaialble here.  

 

6 January 2023​

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I am hugely looking forward to the world premiere of my new piece What Does The Harp Suggest? at the Budapest Music Center on 18 February by Ensemble ARS NOVA. The piece is scored for oboe, clarinet, horn, piano, cimbalom, percussion and double bass, and is written for Péter Eötvös Foundation. It will be performed in an exciting programme also including works by Stefano Gervasoni and Brahms.​

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Tickets are avaialble here.

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20 October 2022

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I'm so happy to have been selected as the Péter Eötvös Foundation's composition mentor, and I can't wait to start work with Péter Eötvös, Stefano Gervasoni, Hans Abrahamsen, Ars Nova Ensemble and Danubia Orchestra Óbuda over the coming year in Budapest and in Annecy, France. As part of the scheme, I will be writing a number of pieces for a variety of ensembles, culminating in a large concerto that will be premiered in Hungary in 2024. 

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I'm hugely grateful to Péter Eötvös for this wonderful opportunity, and to the other tutors I've enjoyed working with so far at the Foundation, including Unsuk Chin and Magnus Lindberg.

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18 October 2022

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The New Zealand premiere of my song cycle Chrysalis (2015) will be given by Blake Scanlen at the University of Auckland on 3 November 2022. 

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24 June 2022

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I spent ​this week at the Péter Eötvös Foundation in Budapest with Péter Eötvös, Magnus Lindberg and Ars Nova Ensemble. It was also a huge honour to spend some time with György Kurtág.

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17 June 2022

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SmorgasChord 2022 begins today, in which I perform music by Lili Boulanger, Modest Mussorgsky, Wolfgang Rihm and György Kurtág with Hugo Herman Wilson, Tim Posner, Edgar Francis and Jonathan Leibovitz. Tim Posner also gives the world premiere of Cantastoria for solo cello. 

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14 June 2022

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We appear on BBC Radio 3 today to discuss SmorgasChord 2022. You can listen here.

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18 February 2022

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The​ programme for SmorgasChord 2022 has just been released! You can view it here. I am especially looking forward to the premiere of a new piece for cellist Tim Posner.

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30 December 2021

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The world premiere of We Dance, We Dance will be given on 1 January 2022 at Studio Annette, Tel Aviv, by Nir Marom.  Tickets are available here; the concert will also be streamed live on Facebook (8PM Israel Standard Time). 

 

25 November 2021

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I'm very excited to be participating in the CEME Festival in Tel Aviv, Israel, in December, working with Meitar Ensemble and studying with Unsuk Chin. Jonathan Hadas will give the world premiere of a new short work for solo clarinet. 

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30 October 2021

 

My orchestral piece​ Scherzo in La Maggiore receives its first performance today at the Michael Fowler Centre in Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington, NZ, by Orchestra Wellington and Marc Taddei. 

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07 June 2021

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You can watch the premiere performance (given by Hugo Herman Wilson) of I Heard Nothing But The Roaring Sea here.

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01 June 2021

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You can now listen back to yesterday's feature on BBC Radio 3's In Tune, which includes an excerpt of my piece Grand Pas de Cinq.

 

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25 May 2021

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I am appearing on BBC Radio 3's In Tune on 31 May with SmorgasChord co-director Eliza Millett to discuss our plan's for this years inaugural festival. Listen here. You can also read about SmorgasChord in Classical Music Magazine in a new article we have written here.

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07 May 2021

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Tickets are now available for SmorgasChord, a mini festival of chamber music and poetry I am curating in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, on 5 June. Tickets can be purchased here. 

 

The festival will feature the world premiere of my new work for solo baritone, I Heard Nothing But The Roaring Sea, in addition to performances of works by Clara Schumann, Kaija Saariaho, Jörg Widmann, György Ligeti, and Olivier Messiaen. Artists will include Eliza Millett, Dave Shaw, Andrew Dickinson, Hugo Herman Wilson, Emily Earl and Luke English. 

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05 March 2021

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Due to the past week's unexpected Level-3 lockdown in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, and its resultant travel restrictions, Te Ata 2021 has very sadly been cancelled. The festival writes that 'we look forward to March 2022 when we will once again gather in Porirua to exchange, create, debate, compete and nurture the imagination that is urging us to towards new ways of seeing the world, valuing it, and towards a future worth building'.

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01 March 2021

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Tickets are now available for Exiled Forever, my collaboration with Lemi Ponifasio, Chris Ward and Le Manaia Ponifasio at Te Ata 2021. Tickets are available here.

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11 February 2021

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I am looking forward to working with Lemi Ponifasio at Te Ata in Porirua in March. Details will be available soon. You can read about last year's festival here. 

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08 April 2020

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Due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the Mahler Festival 2020, including the world premiere of The Mosaique of the Aire, has sadly been cancelled. See here for details concerning the possible rescheduling of the festival. Stay safe!

 

03 April 2020

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I am now represented by SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music, Toi te Arapūoru. You can look at and purchase scores of my music from their website here, and read more about music in Aotearoa New Zealand here.

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20 December 2019

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Tickets are now available from Paradiso Club for the world premiere performance of The Mosaique of the Aire.

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04 November 2019

 

I am very much looking forward to performances of The Mosaique of the Aire in Amsterdam and London given by the Orchestra for the Earth and John Warner. The world premiere will be at Het Concertgebouw's Mahler Festival 2020.