Song Without Words

All works recorded on 3 November 2013 at Jacqueline du Pre Music Building, St. Hilda’s College, Oxford.

Recording engineer: Adaq Khan
With thanks to Thalia Myers

My first CD contains a selection of six works all of which have a very personal connection. I came to play four of the pieces through my long involvement with CoMA (Contemporary Music for All) while one was written for me by my old tutor at King’s College London.

In June 2010 I was invited to perform some solo piano works in a joint concert with CoMA Voices. It made sense to perform works by composers whose works were being performed in the concert and Joanna Lee had written two extremely effective vocal works for CoMA Voices on words by E. E. Cummings: whippoorwill which was shortlisted for a British Composer Award in 2007 and (hills chime with thrush) which was being performed in this concert. When I approached her for a piano work she sent me Atta, Hopper and Dot, which are pieces she wrote as a student at Birmingham Conservatoire. They are taken from A Bug’s Life, the title of which comes from a Disney Pixar film of the same name. Each movement is based upon a different character from the film: Hopper is the bold and brash one, Dot is tiny, light-footed and relentless, Flik is mischievous and unpredictable, and Atta (a Princess) is delicate and graceful. At the same time I asked Paul Burnell whether he had written anything for solo piano. Burnell has written over thirty works for CoMA during his long association with the organisation. A couple of weeks later, 3 Plain Pieces arrived. I performed them in June 2010 and only afterwards discovered that in fact he had written them after I had asked him! I am very grateful to Paul for the opportunity to give the premiere of these works.

Another work relating to my association with CoMA is Dream Rotation. I worked for CoMA for four years. One day an envelope arrived in the office addressed to me. It contained nothing but a new short piano work by Dave Smith, Dream Rotation, with my name as the dedicatee. No covering note. Dream Rotation Mark 2 is an extended version of this original piece. I performed it in a recital at Schott Music in November 2012. In January 2013 I took part in Midwinter Composers, a masterclass organised by CoMA, at the Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building in Oxford. The tutor on the course was Sally Beamish. Ten composers took part in the course and over the five days we were given the task of each writing a variations on the Scottish folk tune, Ca’ the Yowes. Each of us had to write down a title, speed and mood indication on pieces of paper which went into separate hats, then we each picked one from each hat. One composer picked the title Stampede and mood ‘leggiero’ – fortunately for Sally she picked ‘Evening Lament’, ‘largo’, ‘mesto’. She wrote the work for solo piano and I performed it in the end of course concert. It is especially apt that I have now recorded it in the same venue on the same piano. Beamish subsequently incorporated the musical material from this miniature into the fifth movement of Flodden, which was first performed by Shuna Scott Sendall (soprano) with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Joseph Swensen.

Since 2007 I have worked part time for BASCA, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, as judging co-ordinator for the British Composer Awards and I have the opportunity to hear most of the works which are put forward for judging. In 2010 Cheryl Frances-Hoad won awards in two categories, Liturgical for Psalm no. 1: Blessed is the Man and Instrumental Solo or Duo for Stolen Rhythm for solo piano. Stolen Rhythm was from a set of works by various composers on the name of Haydn. I asked Frances-Hoad for a copy and at the same time as sending me Stolen Rhythm Frances-Hoad sent me Song Without Words, a homage to Mendelssohn, particularly based on Song Without Words Op.102 no.2. Frances-Hoad writes: “I spent many hours playing through all of them and the musical lines and phrasing of this Song really struck me. I tried to emulate Mendelssohn's musical line, which seems to stretch in one phrase over the entire piece, in my own piece. Song Without Words was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 in 2009 for the bicentenary of Mendelssohn's birth and premiered by Andrew Zolinsky on BBC Radio 3.”

From 2000 to 2002 I studied composition at King’s College London with Rob Keeley. A pianist who performs regularly himself, Keeley has written a huge number of solo piano pieces and November 2012 I performed Pentango, a tango in 5/8. A Little Passacaglia arrived soon afterwards, dedicated to me. It is in ten sections plus introduction and coda, each making use of the passacaglia melody within a different texture.

I would like to thank my teacher Thalia Myers for her inspiration, expert guidance and help in learning this repertoire, preparing it for recording and for her help on the actual day of recording.

Natalie Bleicher
Natalie Bleicher is a classical pianist and composer living in London. She has a particular passion for contemporary music and performs new works regularly both in solo recitals and as pianist in CoMA London Ensemble. She has given several recitals at the Schott recital room in London including works by Gabriel Jackson, Philip Cashian and Cheryl Frances-Hoad as well as works by Debussy, Haydn, Mozart, Ravel, Schubert and Schumann. She has been a member of CoMA London Ensemble since 2005 and performs regularly with the group. She also performs with contemporary music collective Wolf Pack. Other recent performances include the premiere of Fabricio Brachetta’s Mass for Soprano, Piano and Strings as pianist in the newly-formed London Arte Chamber Orchestra in December 2010 and Shostakovich Symphony no. 5 with the European Doctors Orchestra at Sage Gateshead in November 2011. Natalie is the accompanist for Belsize Community Choir and is in the pool of accompanists at City Lit. As a composer Natalie has written examination pieces for piano, electronic keyboard and harp, which are published by Trinity Guildhall and Beartramka. She was an spnm shortlisted composer from 2003-2005.

Natalie studied at Junior Trinity, New College, Oxford and King’s College London. She studied piano with Christopher Caine, Nicholas Salwey and Colin Stone and omposition with Melanie Daiken and Robert Keeley. She is currently studying piano with Thalia Myers and has taken part in masterclasses with Mary Dullea and Tasmin Little. Natalie works part time for BASCA (British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors) as Judging Co-ordinator for the British Composer Awards and Classical & Jazz Liaison Officer. From 2007 to 2011 she was also Manager of CoMA (Contemporary Music for All) but left in order to concentrate on her piano studies.

Sally Beamish
Sally Beamish was born in London. Formerly a viola player, she moved from London to Scotland in 1990. Her music embraces many influences, particularly jazz and Scottish traditional music. She has written for numerous soloists, including Tabea Zimmermann, Håkan Hardenberger and Steven Isserlis. Beamish’s music is performed and broadcast internationally. Her string quartet for the Elias Quartet, 'Reed Stanzas', received its premiere at the 2011 BBC Proms, and won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. In 2012 Beamish was BBC Radio 3 Composer of the Week; and Branford Marsalis premiered ‘Albatross’ at the World Saxophone Congress in St Andrews, with the composer at the piano. He will also be recording the saxophone version of Under the Wing of the Rock, dedicated to him, for BIS, with the RSNO, in 2014. In 2013, Beamish’s ‘Variations on a Theme of Benjamin Britten’ were premiered by the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields. ‘Flodden’, written to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the battle, was premiered by the SCO in 2013, and shortlisted for an RPS Award.

2014 features 2 recordings of Beamish’s ‘sea’ music: the Trusler Carroll Wass Piano Trio in the Seafarer Trio, with narrator Sir Willard White, for Orchid Classics, alongside her trio arrangement of Debussy’s La Mer; and Seavaigers, her concerto for Scottish Fiddle and Harp, recorded by Chris Stout and Catriona McKay with the Scottish Ensemble.

Beamish’s ‘Spinal Chords’, with text by Melanie Reid, toured the UK in 2014 with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and narrator Juliet Stevenson. ‘Equal Voices’, marking the centenary of the First World War, is a major work for the LSO, with poet Sir Andrew Motion; and Birmingham Royal Ballet has commissioned a full-length ballet for 2016.

Paul Burnell
Paul Burnell (born 1960, Ystrad, South Wales) is a composer and musician based in London, UK. Having studied music at Dartington College of Arts, Exeter University and Royal Holloway College and played professionally in various ensembles, he took a ten-year break from music, returning to concentrate on composition in the 1990s. He has received many commissions from festivals, Summer Schools, ensembles and professional musicians in the UK and abroad, including: the finale of the Bath International Music Festival; Inchcholm New Music Ensemble with a tour of performances in Scotland and the Czech Republic; CoMA, with performances by many of the associated ensembles and a feature of his works at the Summer School; a series of percussion pieces for Chris Brannick; a harpsichord piece performed by Jane Chapman; a piece for viol, harpsichord and recorder for the Stanesby Players; a trumpet quartet for Bella Tromba; and many other pieces for a variety of instruments, including choir, string orchestra, piano (and toy piano), recorder orchestra, contemporary chamber groups of varying combinations and spoken word pieces. Paul enjoys writing pieces and experimenting with unusual combinations and instruments and often makes use of electronics and backing tracks. Some of his techniques can be found on his recorded albums such as ‘Leaving the Party on Pluto’, ‘Good to Go’, ‘Sticking with Childish Things’ and most recently in 2013 ‘Face Each Aged Ache’ and ‘Cabbage Heads’. Paul has also conducted various orchestras and ensembles and tutored contemporary repertoire on recorder courses and written CD reviews for the Recorder Magazine. As a performer, Paul was a member of the Brake Drum Assembly percussion group from 2004-2009, and since 2007 has been a member of the Contakt composers ensemble which has given several performances of his work in and around London.

Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Cheryl Frances-Hoad was born in Essex in 1980 and received her musical education at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Gonville and Caius College (University of Cambridge) and Kings College London. She was Music Fellow at Rambert Dance from 2012-2013, and from 2010-12 was the first DARE Cultural Fellow in the Opera Related Arts in association with Opera North and the University of Leeds. Cheryl won the BBC Young Composer Competition in 1996 at the age of 15 and since then her works have garnered numerous prizes and awards, including the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize (UK, 2007), The Bliss Prize (UK, 2002), the first Robert Helps International Composition Prize (University of Florida, 2005), the Mendelssohn Scholarship (UK, 2002) and the Cambridge Composer's Competition (UK, 2001). Most recently in 2011 Cheryl was awarded a PRS Women Make Music award to write a new brass quintet for Onyx Brass, which was toured around the UK as part of the 2011/12 Music in the Round season. Recent works include a ’cello concerto for the 2013 Spitalfields Festival, a new Canticle that was premiered by the Prince Consort on the exact centenary of Britten’s birth (at the Wigmore Hall on 22nd November 2013) and Sailing to the Marvelous, a work that celebrated the 900th anniversary of Bridlington Priory. Cheryl’s first opera, Amy's Last Dive, with a libretto by Adam Strickson, was premiered as part of the Yorkshire Cultural Olympiad Programme in July 2012 in Bridlington and Leeds. Future commissions include a new solo violin work for Fenella Humphries, a work for the London Chamber Orchestra and a work for Rambert (which will be choreograped by Rambert’s artistic director Mark Baldwin and toured all around in UK in 2014/25).

Rob Keeley
Rob Keeley was born in Bridgend in 1960. He studied with Oliver Knussen at the Royal College of Music, Magdalen College Oxford under Bernard Rose, and later with Robert Saxton. In 1988 he studied at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome with Franco Donatoni, and at the Tanglewood Summer Music School, where he was the Benjamin Britten Fellow in Composition, working with Oliver Knussen and Hans Werner Henze. Before joining King’s College, London in 1993, where he is currently Senior Lecturer in Composition, Rob worked a freelance music copyist, pianist and repetiteur, working with Opera Factory, Almeida Opera and Garsington Opera. He has also played with the London Sinfonietta and Music Projects/London, and now gives frequent solo recitals covering a wide range of repertoire. As a pianist, Rob has premiered works by, among others, Harrison Birtwistle, Michael Finnissy, Jonathan Cole, Richard Emsley and Nicola Moro. He has given lecture recitals on 20th-century piano music at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and seminars on his own music at UC Berkeley, University of Oregon, Eugene. and more recently at the University of Denver.

His works have been performed by, among others: BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Lontano, Premiere Ensemble, Ensemble Bash, dal niente ensemble Chicago, pianists Martin Roscoe, Colin Stone, Mary Dullea and Ian Pace, guitarists Jonathan Leathwood and Fabio Zanon, bass player Corrado Canonici, oboes Andrew Nogal and Chris Redgate, Bingham Quartet, Chinook Clarinet Quartet, Fretwork and Composers' Ensemble. Currently, two portrait discs of Rob's music are being prepared, on the NMC and Lorelt labels. In 2013 Convivium Records issued a CD of his chamber music performed by Rowland Sutherland and the Fidelio Trio.

Joanna Lee
Described by The Guardian as ‘a considerable talent’, Joanna Lee's compositions have been shortlisted for a British Composer Award and Arts Foundation Opera Composition Award, featured in Premieres of the Year in Classical Music magazine, and her first chamber opera received the Stephen Oliver Award. She is the 2013 recipient of the John Collard Clementi Fellowship. Her work has been described variously as ‘sharply witty’ (Daily Telegraph) and ‘assured and confident’ (Birmingham Post). Joanna is currently working on a new commission for English National Opera with director Katie Mitchell. She was BCMG/SAM Apprentice Composer-in-Residence for 2012/13, mentored by Oliver Knussen. Recent projects include a commission for EXAUDI, a Jerwood Opera Fellowship and a residency at Aldeburgh composing a piece for Aldeburgh Music Club to celebrate 60 years since their founding by Benjamin Britten, including a performance during the Britten Centenary Weekend 2013. Performances of Joanna's work include London Symphony Orchestra, BCMG, Psappha, CHROMA, EXAUDI, Orchestra of the Swan, Britten-Pears Orchestra, Elysian Quartet, De Ereprijs, Fidelio Trio, Jane Manning, Sarah Leonard, Loré Lixenberg, Omar Ebrahim, and Joby Burgess.

Joanna has participated in the Britten-Pears Contemporary Composition Course, LSO Panufnik Scheme and Jerwood Opera Writing Foundation Course. She is completing a PhD in composition at Birmingham Conservatoire, supervised by Richard Causton and Edwin Roxburgh, and was awarded Honorary Membership by the Conservatoire in 2013 for significant contribution to her field of profession. Joanna is an experienced music educator and has worked as music assistant to Paul Englishby, which has included the music for the Oscar-nominated film An Education, and projects for the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Ballet, Ronnie Scott's and the BBC.

Dave Smith
Dave Smith was born in 1949 and read music at Magdalene College, Cambridge. During the 1970s, he was a member of the London-based Scratch Orchestra and various composer-performer ensembles (principally with John Lewis, Michael Parsons, Howard Skempton, John White, Gavin Bryars and Ben Mason) and later was a founder member of the English Gamelan Orchestra and Liria, the first English groups to specialise in, respectively, Javanese classical and Albanian folk musics. He has been a member of the Gavin Bryars Ensemble since its inception and his close association with the music of White, Bryars and Cardew has continued ever since, a recent publication being Albus liber: exploits and opinions of John White, composer (London Institute of ‘Pataphysics). Up to 1977 his music was largely minimalist: his style quickly developed into a highly eclectic pool of ideas ranging musically from the abstract to the markedly referential and which on occasion is informed by a political consciousness and commitment reminiscent of the later Cardew. His acknowledged influences range from Alkan, Ives and Szymanowski to Albanian folk music, Duke Ellington and those with whom he has worked. The range of ideas is most clearly chronicled in a series of recital-length solo Piano Concerts, works that encompass an entire concert with varieties of styles.

Smith currently lectures in music at the University of Hertfordshire. His work with students has resulted in a large number of arrangements, particularly for tuned percussion groups. Other arrangements include a solo piano version of Holst's The Planets and reductions for violin and piano of a number of Albanian works for violin and orchestra. He is a member of CoMA (Contemporary Music for All) for whom he has composed works for large, flexible ensembles such as Murdoch or Fred West - which is best? Reconsidered (2000), and Whiskies of Islay (2006).