UMP COMPOSER NEWS - UPDATED 11 JANUARY 2012

EDWIN ROXBURGH tells us his news:

"Chris Redgate has been using a Fellowship at the RAM to create and construct additional mechanism for the oboe to facilitate the extreme high register and multiphonic capabilities of the instrument. This is revolutionary work, and I was very pleased to collaborate with him in composing a work to illustrate these special features, resulting in The Well Tempered Oboe, premiered at the launch of the instrument (manufactured by Howarth and Co. Ltd.) on 8 October 2011. The title derives from a Bach quotation which presents the first four chords of his Chaconne in D minor with oboe multiphonics. Each movement is based on a Bach title and gives the pianist an equally virtuosic role. It is a privilege to have been involved in such a landmark project. Chris Redgate and Stephen Robbings (piano) will record the work for Metier in January 2012.

UMP have published a choral version of my Lament for the Victims of Conflict (with text by Julie Roxburgh) which was commissioned and performed by David Wordsworth and the Addison Singers. They plan to record the work in 2012.

In May 2012 the Sounds New Festival in Canterbury will present a performance of How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear with Tim Pigott-Smith as narrator.

Following the extremely well received premiere of my Concerto for Orchestra (October 2010, BBCSO/Andrew Davis), I have been invited to conduct a further performance at Birmingham Town Hall in June 2012 with the Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra.

I am currently working on a second concerto for oboe commissioned by Paul Goodey, to be recorded for a CD which will also include Voyager and Elegy for Ur.

Negotiations are being pursued for the performance of the monumental 3-Act opera, Abelard.

EDWARD COWIE writes from his home in Maurens, France: The late Spring and early Summer were dominated by planning and management of Earth Music Bristol. Not an easy time to found a new festival, let alone one that has such a unique structure and core as this! But my choice of Bristol as the host city has proved to be all and more than I expected it to be. The Nature Consortium, Wild Screen, the BBC Natural History Unit, Slimbridge Wild Life and Wetlands, have become active and collaborative partners in this foundation year. More, however, is the tremendous logistical and artistic support from both BBC Radios 3 and 4. The concerts will be broadcast live from the festival, together with a commissioned series of ‘Essays’ (for Radio 3), and ‘The Story’ (for Radio 4).

We’ve also managed to get the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition to coincide with the festival in Bristol, and two of the world’s leading wildlife artists will have an exhibition at St George’s, the main host venue and festival centre. None of this would have been possible without a lot of great team-work and not a little determination! Click here for details of the 8 days of events, from November 18th to November 26th. New music does get more than a cursory coverage, though of course it’s been essential to design a programme that enables the festival to get a firm footing for the next one planned for the spring of 2013 (my 70th birthday year!), when the theme for that festival will be Space and Place.

The Coull Quartet (appearing at the festival in Bristol to perform my 5th quartet), have been giving this yet more airings. If only more ensembles would honour and commit to many performances of commissioned pieces like they do! But talking of such musicians, Christopher Redgate took my Kandinsky’s Oboe to China, and evidently it went down well.

My Particle Partita for the violinist Jack Liebeck, was finished in first draft in late August. It’s been commissioned by the Institute of Physics, Oxford University and a German scientific foundation based in Hamburg. The subject is a ‘time-line’ of particle physics from Democritus to the Higgs Boson. Preliminary filming and initial planning will be at Balliol College on September 9th. Plans are developed for many performances of it next year, accompanied by lectures on my scientific collaborator partner, Professor Brian Foster.

Since then, I’ve been making an instrumental version (for 23 instruments) of my earlier InhabitAT, a work that was commissioned by the BBC when I was in residence with the BBC Singers (also appearing at Earth Music Bristol this year). It’s a fascinating project, to re-invent the voices of 24 singers into a purely instrumental setting!

After that? Well, Peter Hill wants a major piano cycle from me and we’re already working on ideas together. A commission for an oboe quintet from the Coull is in progress. And one of these days I must complete Two Ravens, an enormous (in mass, not length) orchestral piece... and I really want to write a violin concerto...

STEPHEN MONTAGUE spent the summer completing his new harpsichord concerto, Phrygian Ferment, for the Paris based Polish harpsichordist, Elisabeth Chojnacka. In August his Two Dirges, Three Dances for flute and percussion toured the US (MacDuo) including a performance at the American National Flute Convention, Charlotte, NC. On 25 September the University of Texas Symphonic Wind Symphony (Jerry Junkin, cond.) open their season with Intrada 1631. Paramell VI for chamber ensemble opens the Trinity Laban Conservatory of Music & Dance’s autumn season at Blackheath Concert Halls, London on 6 October. In his second season as New Music Associate at Cambridge University’s Kettle’s Yard Gallery Montague conducts his large orchestral/choral work, Dark Sun – August 1945, first at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, 20 October at West Road Concert Hall, then on 6 November at St. Janskerk, in Maastricht, Holland. The London premiere of his Requiem: The Trumpets Sounded Calling Them to the Other Side is on Remembrance Sunday, 11 November at St Johns, Smith Square, London performed by the London Mozart Players (Gerard Kosten, cond.) and the Portsmouth Grammar School Chamber Choir. In December he has a short residency at Florida State University, Tallahassee, where several of his works will be featured. Forthcoming commissions include Sheffield’s Ensemble 360 and London’s Hackney Council for an Olympic year event. His Cambridge Kettle’s Yard Concert Series of 8 concerts begins in January.

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