Projects and Pieces.

Sketchbook

(2021 - 2022)

Format: Series of releases.

Instrumentation: Mixed Electronics, Acoustic Instrumentation and Field Recordings.

Four Landscapes

(2020)

Format: EP

Instrumentation: Mixed Electronics.

Four Landscapes is a collection of music from 2017 - 2020 during my time studying Electronic Music at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. These four tracks resemble four very independent mental spaces.

Blade of Light (Ode to the Millennium Bridge)

(2019)

Format: Orchestral piece with electronics for the Illuminated River public art commission.

Instrumentation: Full Orchestra, performed and recorded with the Guildhall Session Orchestra.

Commissioned by the Illuminated River Foundation, Blade of Light is an ode to the Millennium Bridge and its latest lighting installation designed by Leo Villareal. I consider the Millennium Bridge to be a triumphant partnership of engineering and artistry.

For me, the bridge represents the blazing optimism and momentum of the beginning of the 21st century. When you come to walk across the bridge at present you can get a quick, sharp glimpse of the vibrant chaos of London. These are all things that I wanted to embody within my high-octane, jet-fuelled fanfare.

My ode to the bridge is inspired by its architectural shape, and how this presents a sense of momentum. Various structural elements of the bridge have been conceptually translated into a musical structure - for example, the bridge’s principle of ‘lateral suspension’ has been realised through suspending notes on top of elongated cadences to create a sense of building anticipation. The birds-eye view of the bridge has inspired the dynamic energy of material, for example the rhythmic string parts.

Throughout the piece, each instrumental section of the orchestra maintains a sense of lateral momentum on a pitch, often phasing in and out of alignment with other sections, creating a sense of musical architecture and co-reliance between each part of the orchestra. The orchestra is underplayed with gradually building electronics, furthering a sense of playful contemporary London.

News reports on the project:

Illuminated River: First London bridges lit up

The Thames Is Aglow! These 4 Central London Bridges Are Now Illuminated

First part of 'the world's longest artwok' goes live in London

London bridges go LED as part of £45m longest artwork project

Guildhall Ident Music

(2020)

Format: Short stems for Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s logo animations.

Instrumentation: Full Orchestra with electronics, performed and recorded with the Guildhall Session Orchestra.

During my time at Guildhall School of Music and Drama I composed, conducted and recorded a series of stems for the use of Guildhall Live Events and the school to work alongside the Guildhall logo animations.

I was inspired by the work of minimalist composes John Adams and Steve Reich.

Every Sound is a Spectre (For Recorder and Electronics)

(Performed in 2022 For Julien Evans’ final performance at Guildhall School of Music and Drama)

Format: live piece. Instrumentation: Recorder and Electronics: live synthesis and tape.

Featuring voiceover by Peter Walters.

1. Introduction — Every Sound is a Spectre

2. Timeliness/Timelessness

3. Time, You Won’t Get Back

4. Time/Present Time/Past

5. All Time — An Elegy

This suite explores time through five pieces for recorders and electronics. They play with musical timing, the passage of time’s effects on musical tradition, and the trajectory of the music itself through the duration of the performance. The suite form, particularly popular in the French baroque, collects these ideas together, and echoes of the early dance suite can be found in these pieces’ flowing movement and sharp rhythmic turns. The unmeasured notation that much of the piece uses also combines these early influences with the modern, taking inspiration from Neil Luck and François Couperin, and it invokes a simultaneous sense of the old and the contemporary, from unmetered chant to stretching minimalism. From the meditative slowing into near-stasis of the introduction, the second movement pulls apart and tests the carefully trained synchronicity of the performers as a musical idea is played at different speeds. The third movement, for solo recorder, fidgets and pushes through restless exploration into the rhythmic precision of the fourth movement’s synchronised analogue and digital music. Finally, the piece builds into a multitracked explosion of all time — past, present, future, memory and anticipation.

This is the suite’s first performance:

If you would like to play this piece, the score can be acquired by contacting me.

Bounce, Crash. Shake, Scratch.(for Brompton Quartet

(Released August 2021)

Format: performed and recorded as part of online event ESCAPE and released as an Ep.

Instrumentation: String Quartet and Electronics. Performed by The Brompton Quartet, Maja Horvat, Haim Choi, Kinga Wojdalska and Wallis Power.

Recorded and engineered by Dom Kirtley at Press Play Studios. Mixed and mastered by Will Davenport.

Sounds are inherently loaded with drama and poetry. Every single sound contains its own logic, history, trajectory and beauty. 'Bounce, Crash. Shake Scratch' is a two movement piece for String Quartet and Electronics. It is what I consider to be my first in-depth exploration of what it means to fuse electronic and acoustic sounds together.

As a composer primarily working in the field of Electronic Music I have always been obsessed by the infinite potential of electro-acoustic music, not only because of the limitless sonic opportunities it presents, but also the possibility of crossing boundaries, musical spaces and genres within music. Despite this, as a composer I have often felt a disconnect between both electronic and classical practices, both in the sonic results and also in the practice of composition itself. 'Bounce, Crash. Shake, Scratch.' is my first truly electro-acoustic piece where I believe that this disconnect has been properly addressed.

As an electronic ‘sound artist’/producer’ I am often dawn to creating sonic landscapes where simple structures are populated with complex sounds. These sounds often include indeterminate rhythms and micro-tonal inflections of pitch that can be more complex and chaotic than the structure may lead you to expect. This micro-complexity, which is generated via quasi-random electronic algorithms interests me as a composer and a listener. Working with String Quartet, I was interested in finding a way to transfer this electronic micro-complexity on an acoustic instrument. I chanced upon the idea of using a handheld ‘lipstick fan’ as a rhythmic contact point for the violin strings, I attached a piece of string to the end of the fan, which quickly hits the string of an instrument in an semi- controllable, yet wholly indeterminately rhythmic fashion. This textural sound became what I call the ‘bounce’ sound.

"The piece is a skilfully executed work for string quartet with electronics, admirably clear in conception and realisation, with two balanced movements which complement each other… "  - Matthew King

If you would like to play this piece, the score can be acquired by contacting me.

Shimmer (For Violist Anna Bastow)

(Released 2021)

Format: For an immersive Augmented-Reality installation around London Wall

Instrumentation: Viola and Electronics

Recorded, mixed and Mastered at Guildhall’s Truman Studio

Shimmer was commissioned by Brookfield Properties and was written for an Augmented-reality installation, more specifically a water feature situated around London Wall. The piece captures the illusive beauty of water and its movement, reflection and refraction.

It uses layers of the viola, and electronics (which are refracted and manipulated live by the viola) to create shimmering textures that feel both static and yet also teaming with movement and energy. Upon visiting the water feature I was struck by its minimalism and stasis from a distance; the water almost forms a reflective mirror to the local modernist architecture, and yet when you zoom in on the water the intricate reflections are constantly moving. This is what I a have tried to reflect within the piece, through simple chords being held (resembling a distant perspective), and minute arpeggios, harmonics, and dancing electronics adding to the texture (resembling the close-up detail).

If you would like to play this piece, the score can be acquired by contacting me.

A Fabricated Tale of The Last Remaining Bell of St John & St Agnes (For Laurie Chattington)

(Released 2019)

Format: A performance as part of Sound Unbound.

Instrumentation: Voice and (four channel) looping.

Performed by Laurie Chattington at The Gresham Centre, London. ‘A new song cycle for live voices, bells & electronics’ - Sound Unbound

For the Sound Unbound festival I was commissioned to write two pieces – one for 4 singers entitled News Feed, and one for solo singer and live electronics entitled A Fabricated Tale of the Last Remaining Bell of St Anne & St Agnes. Both pieces were tailored for four channel amplification for the location of The Gresham Centre, London. Both pieces were inspired by ‘Fake News’ and Jennifer Walshe’s interest in imagined, fake or speculative history.

If you would like to play this piece, the score can be acquired by contacting me.

Process Pleasure (For Solo Violin)

(2018)

Format: notated

Instrumentation: Solo Violin. Written for Tilman Fleig.

If you would like to play this piece, the score can be acquired by contacting me.

ESCAPE (360 Online Event)

(2021)

Format: 360 Video

Instrumentation: String Quartet and Electronics

ESCAPE is an interactive online event of new music for String Quartet and Electronics. The music is performed by The Brompton Quartet and features a plethora of new music by Will Davenport, Millicent James, Jamie Unie, Ellie Parker, James Allen, Mathis Saunier and Kit McCarthy.

The Brompton String Quartet is comprised of musicians from the UK, Poland and Slovenia. They were winners of the 2019 St Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Music Competition and are featured Making Music Artists. Since forming in October 2018, the quartet have received coaching from artists such as Alfred Brendel, Daniel Rowland, Mats Zitterqvist, Heinz Holliger, Rafael Todes, Jon Thorne and the Marmen and Harlem Quartets.

Programme:

Millicent James - Projection

Mathis Saunier - ODYSSEY Y

James Allen - Loving You (Elvis Cover)

Kit McCarthy - Wherever I have Lived

James Allen - True Love (Elvis Cover)

Jamie Unie - Downstream

Ellie Parker - Escape on an Adventure

Will Davenport - i. Bounce, Crash and ii. Shake, Scratch