Large orchestra (2012) Processional and Bacchanal is a single-movement piece which depicts an approaching, riotous Bacchanal. Listen to an excerpt: A slow repeated rhythm underpins the music, which gradually accumulates other ideas and layers, before finally being piled-up and pushed to saturation point. The kinds of images found on ancient carvings – of Dionysus surrounded […]
Category Archives: Large Ensemble
Two narrators, four harps, choir and organ (2019 rev.2022) Set in ancient Alexandria this dramatic cantata juxtaposes the lives of two martyrs of antiquity – the pioneering mathematician and philosopher Hypatia (c.355-415AD) who was brutally murdered by an extremist Christian mob, and the legend of St Katherine of Alexandria (of Katherine-wheel fame), who was tortured […]
Perotin – arr. 3 Saxophones, 4 Horns, 3 Trumpets, 3 Trombones I arranged this joyous 11th century Organum for a concert at the Royal Academy of Music in 2012. The arrangement is written with much regard for the changes in syllable (and thus colour) of Perotin’s original. The music is also given an extra ‘swing’ […]
Solo Violin and Double String Orchestra (2017) First planned as a lyrical piece for solo violin and strings, my initial concepts for the music soon accompanied the experience of becoming a father. The piece then became a lullaby, and soon grew to reflect the particular fatigued and emotional state of those first few weeks. The […]
Four Horns and Orchestra (2010) As the title suggests, the music looks to principles of both symphonic and concerto writing. There is an attempt in the piece to integrate five movements into one, where the transitions between movements become gradually more seamless. The large majority of thematic material for the piece is also developed out […]
Double String Orchestra, String Quartet (2 Vla, 2 Vc), Organ pedal (2015) “…August, in short, is the month of Nature’s perfect poise, and I should like to see it represented in painting by a Junonian woman, immobile, passionless, and happy in a cool-leaved wood, and looking neither forward nor backward, but within…” “…All bending in […]
12 Trumpets, 2 Percussion, Piano, Organ, SATB soli, SATB chorus, 2 Db (2015) The idea to set Edgar Allen Poe’s four part poem The Bells came from a number of ideas that I had brewing at the time, and my choice of text was in fact the final piece of the puzzle which served to […]
Violin & Orchestra (2015-16) Listen to an excerpt: Written on the 2015-16 LPO young composers scheme, this concerto is dedicated to violinist Vesselin Gellev, who premiered the work on 4th July 2016 at the Royal College of Music, conducted by Magnus Lindberg. The initial aspiring and collapsing gesture in the orchestra exposes all of the […]