Nice quotes

These are some nice quotes I read the other day.

"There are times in the theater when poets and composers must have the talent to write neither poetry nor music"

- Verdi (Dyneley Hussey; The Master Musicians, Verdi; 176)

"... one keeps on returning, from time to time, to an identical piece of material in order to map out new possibilities inherent in it. As to the point at which that wanders off into self-repetition..."

-György Kurtág (Bálint András Varga; Three questions for sixty-five composers; 145)

"He [Robert Rauschenberg] said that he does not want either life or art. He wants something in between. [...] And Cage would see this beautiful white thing in the shadows of the environment [...] and he saw where art and the outside environment could collage. Not interfere with each other. [...] For me, the problem of music is that it has too much to do with music. And it becomes a lecture."
-Morton Feldman  (Bálint András Varga; Three questions for sixty-five composers; 80-81)

And here is some nice music by Paul Lansky:

Dartington, chapter 3

Dear internet and the people on it. I finally decided to share with you selected bits of the piece I wrote at Dartington International Summer School last August 2012. The tutor was Detlev Glanert and the performers the Composers Ensemble. I hope you´ll enjoy. The title is "The Distance between us".

Composer Detlev Glanert lead daily seminars for 2 weeks on composition for a selected number of advanced students and professional composers at Dartington International Summer School, August 2012. In the second week, pieces written on the course were rehearsed for performance by the Composers Ensemble.

3 new octets

Me, Elizabeth Ogonek and Goncalo Gato handed in our pieces to the BBC on Monday and that ends an intense composing period.

Guildhall composers pieces:

'Octet' - Elizabeth Ogonek
'Vacuum Instability' - Gonçalo Gato
'Bráð': A Glacier´s Requiem - Helgi Ingvarsson (concept courtesy of Friðþjófur Þorsteinsson)

BBC Symphony Orchestra musicians:
Carol Ella (viola)
Michael Clarke (double bass)
Joe Atkins (trumpet)
Peter Davis (clarinet)

Guildhall musicians:
Hunter Noack (piano)
Ching Man Ho (harp)
Jessica Kabirat (flute)
Greg Topping (bassoon)
Agustin Oroczo Martin (trombone)

Richard Baker - conductor.

The rest of the programme:

'Wedding Dances' from the opera Abai - Zhubanov / Hamidi
'The Binding of the Years (UK premiere)' - Deirdre Gribbin
'Symphony No. 7' - Prokofiev

Performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alan Buribayev. Finghin Collins - piano.

Lullaby by Panufnik

I just have to share this eerie-beautiful piece with those who want to listen. Lullaby by Panufnik.Quite the interesting temperament experiment.

Bráð and BBCSO

So it´s been a while. Moving to my new place in Tooting, London has taken it´s toll but has been totally worth it, and more. Living with beautiful people, in a beautiful place. Now, back to work.

I was selected recently for a GSMD / BBCSO collaboration (*Guildhall School / BBC symphony orchestra). I´m writing for an octet of GSMD postgrads and BBCSO players along with Dmus composers Goncalo Gato (Portugal) and Elizabeth Ogonek (USA) with tutoring from Julian Phillips & Matthew King. The workshop was last Wednesday 13th at BBC´s studios, Maida Vale, London. The concert will be March 15th, 7pm at Maida Vale studios and broadcasted. More on that soon.



My piece has received the title Bráð which is an interesting word, since it has many meanings based on it´s context:

NOUN (FEMININE)

1.  prey; game; kill; quarry; chase;

2.  victim;

3. present; moment;

4. dripping;

5. slush;

In this instance, the context relates to all those meanings but the main reference is the retreat of Snæfellsjökull, an Icelandic glacier. The music is therefore "A glacier´s requiem".

More information about the retreating of Snæfellsjökull

The surface of the Snæfellsjökull ice cap in western Iceland was mapped with airborne LiDAR

in 2008. A comparison with a DTM from 1999 derived by aerial photogrammetry shows that the surface of the ice cap has been lowered by 14.0 m on average during this nine year period, corresponding to an annual average mass loss of 1.25 mw.e. per year when a correction has been made for the different timing of the LiDAR survey and the aerial photographs. The area of the ice cap was reduced from 12.5 km2 in 2002 to 10.0 km2 in 2008. [...]

Snæfellsjökull is only 30 m, most of the ice cap is likely to disappear within a few decades if the warm climate of Iceland in recent years persists. The LiDAR DTM has been successfully used to delineate the location of crevasses with an automated procedure based on the calculation of the local curvature of the ice surface.

(Reference: Tómas Jóhannesson, Helgi Björnsson, Finnur Pálsson, 

Oddur Sigurðsson and Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson;

LiDAR mapping of the Snæfellsjökull ice cap,western Iceland; research article)

Here the glacier can be seen from across the bay from Reykjavik, Iceland´s capital.

I also use text/poems (with minor alterations) from the Icelandic sagas for inspiration which lists topographical names from the area:

Sæl væri eg

ef sjá mættag

Búrfell og Bala,

báða Lóndranga,

Aðalþegnshóla

og Öndvertnes,

Heiðarkollu

og Hreggnasa,

Dritvík og möl

[og drifhvítan jökulinn.]

(Helga, Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss)