The wonderful Erda Ensemble will be performing a colourful and varied programme at this year’s Presteigne Festival, which includes both my Suite for Harp and the solo alto flute piece Tyto Alba.
I wrote my Suite for Harp for Olivia Jageurs in 2012 whilst studying together at the Royal Academy of Music. Returning to the suite 13 years later, I revised the second movement and made a few small changes to some of the other movements. The suite is conceived chiefly as a harmonic exploration of the harp – exploring the various levels of dissonance/consonance possible on this essentially modal instrument.
Tyto alba (white owl) is the Latin name for the barn owl. This reflective miniature was premiered by Catherine Handley in 2022, and I’m very much looking forward to hearing what flautist Chloe Vincent brings to the piece. In the music I have tried to capture something of the bird’s mystical character, itʼs silent, graceful, but also extremely agile flight, as well as the sense of the nocturnal suspense felt when watching silently and attentively to catch a glimpse of a barn owl in the wild. The music also carries a Japanese influence (especially the sound of the shakuhachi), as well as a certain elegiac, mournful character stemming from a combination of its screeching call, its plight to survive, and as a lament for an old friend.
Monday 25 August, 11:30 am – Church of St Mary Magdalene, Bleddfa LD7 1PA
See event page and book tickets here