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Who or what are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?

Rather than a particular person, I feel the greatest influence came from a breadth of musical experiences. In addition to playing in orchestras and performing solo piano, I performed in bluegrass, rock, and jazz bands, Balinese gamelan ensembles, West African drumming, Bowed Piano Ensembles, and live electronica performances. The biggest drive for me has always been curiosity, about music’s role in humanity and the connections to ourselves, our memories, and our emotions.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

As artists, we wear our hearts on our sleeves. When a song or piece of music comes together, it almost feels like a gift. In those moments, you can almost touch something bigger than ourselves, and that is an emotional experience, where words fail us, and music steps in. In this day and age, it is learning how to share that experience of music with others, and that means opening oneself up emotionally, and publicly, on the internet. Building a brand out of myself was the largest challenge that I’ve encountered so far!

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece

Most of my commissions are for film and tv music productions, which I enjoy because it allows me to move from one music genre or style to another, experiencing different stories and different perspectives (again, with the curiosity!). The challenge is navigating the larger team dynamic, especially in the entertainment industry. I had
to learn how to create through the shared experiences and perspectives of my collaborators, which is a bit trickier than sitting in my studio writing music simply for myself.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles or orchestras?

The greatest gift we have in music is the connection we can get through amazing humans performing. Every instrument on the globe has been meticulously recorded, sampled, and is available on my keyboard in my studio. Yet, working with a musician or ensemble who is a master of their craft is one of the joys of creating music. Whether it be coaching a school choir learning a choral piece, or hearing a film cue performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, the experience of connection though music is very meaningful.

Tell us more about your work with film composer Howard Shore.

I’ve worked with Howard Shore for 15 years, on over 25 films. I’ve worked as his right hand man (or Octopus man, as orchestrator Conrad Pope has called me) handling arranging, orchestration, and producing of his film scores. I started out within a technical capacity, and over the years was always quick to volunteer for more musical tasks. As we navigated the challenges of various film productions, Howard found me well equipped to handle the unique technical and musical requirements of assembling a film score. As part of my work with Howard, I’ve travelled to London, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Montreal, and many other locations to record orchestras and produce music for films. 

What are the special challenges and pleasures of working on film scores? 

Working on film scores is incredibly labour and time intensive. It requires many hours sitting at a desk to create the 1000s of notes heard in a film score. Not only writing the music, but producing the demos, “conforming” the music to follow picture changes and edits, revising the music based on filmmaker feedback, and orchestrating, recording, editing, and mixing the music makes for a very busy work schedule. One of the great pleasures of working on film scores is amazing resources. While I had to run a Kickstarter campaign and obtain grants to raise the funding for my album of piano quintets, on big budget film scores I have a hundred piece orchestra and any other resources I need. Twelve bagpipes? A group of Didgeridoo players? No problem!

How has your work in film music influenced your new album ‘Everything More Than Anything’?

Working in film music for so long has given me a very strong skillset in how to produce very high quality music. I feel very at home in the recording studio working with musicians, and all that experience makes the writing, producing, and recording of my albums much easier. As all musicians have heard, the more you practice something, the better you are at it!

What do you hope listeners will take from this new album?

I hope listeners will appreciate just how impactful music can be when made with highly skilled musicians playing acoustic instruments. So much of music production these days happens in front a of a computer, and technology has allowed us to create music easily and professionally. But despite these technical advances, making music with other musicians in a room all together has a certain magic which cannot be replicated with technology. 

Dark Before The Dawn – the first track from James Sizmore’s new album Everything More Than Anything, with pianist Stephen Gott

Of which works are you most proud?

All of my solo albums are dear to my heart, as they are closest to my artistic sensibility. I’ve got pieces of film music that have been heard by millions, but some of the songs I’ve written for my wife, my daughters, and my parents are the most meaningful to me. Even though they’ve only been heard by a handful of people!

How would you characterise your compositional language?

I pride myself on being a music chameleon for my film work, but my solo albums are rooted in the classical tradition, and certainly owe a debt to both the late French impressionists, Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy, and also the 20th century minimalists Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams. Probably some film music influence in the harmonies as well!

How do you work?

I am regimented in my schedule, actively working in my studio from 9am-6pm (when I can, some productions require constant attention!). Keeping to a schedule helps me to be able to write music quickly, often writing a new piece in a single day.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

When you’re able to do something you love doing for 33% of your time.

What advice would you give to young/aspiring composers?

Let the music be the most important thing. At first, you must set aside your career aspirations, music business approaches, social media branding, and really focus on the passion for music. While all of that other stuff is important, the only way one can sustain a career in music is if you really love it. Fall in love with music before you try to make it your career. I doubt anyone was ever successful by approaching music with the intention to make a lot of money. If you really love making music, everything else is secondary.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?

Live film music performances have done great things for building interest in orchestral music. The Lord of The Rings is performed live every month, and the experience is a nice gateway to the orchestral classics. I recently attended the new David Geffen Hall in New York City, and the experience was outstanding. I applaud NYC for rebuilding the hall inside out and recognizing that the home of the NY Philharmonic is a cultural institution that they want to support wholeheartedly. I believe that strong arts initiatives, and bridging the gap between traditional classical music and popular culture are important for growing audiences.

What’s the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about which you think we should be?

How is it that the terms breve, crotchet, quaver, and minim, never caught on in the USA? My music would be 10% more fun if we had the proper terminology when making it!

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Every moment (or at least most moments!) of our lives can contain perfect happiness by being present in the moment, and feeling gratitude and agency over this amazing life were given. We’re surrounded by beauty every day; one just needs to keep their eyes and hearts open to the world around them.

‘Everything More Than Anything’, James Sizemore’s new album created in collaboration with British-American pianist Stephen Gott, is being released track by track over the coming weeks. The second track is released on Friday 19 January.

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Two contrasting, but equally delightful new releases are featured today:

HEAVEN TO EARTH Joanna Forbes L’Estrange

An album of choral music, sung by London Voices, conducted by Ben Parry, with Adreanna Chan, organ, composed by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, who has a busy career in choral music – as a singer and choral director(with ensembles such as the Swingle Swingers and Tenebrae) and leading composer for the Royal School of Church Music. Endorsed by leading choral composer John Rutter CBE, as “simply beautiful” music that “every choir will want to sing”, this is a lovely, varied collection of choral music which demonstrates the range of Joanna’s writing – from uplifting tracks like Give Us Grace to more reflective pieces such as Drop, Drop Slow Tears, which was commissioned in memory of British countertenor James Bowman. Released on the Signum Classics label and available on CD and via streaming. Sheet music available from RSCM Music Direct.

EVERYTHING MORE THAN ANYTHING James Sizemore & Stephen Gott

This new release of contemporary piano and chamber music is the result of a collaboration between American composer James Sizemore and British-American pianist Stephen Gott.

I must claim a personal interest as I first met Stephen when he was 18 at a piano course run by our then teacher. Interestingly, he only started playing the piano in his mid-teens. I’ve stayed in touch with Stephen since then and have followed his career and development as a pianist with interest.

This debut album, released as one single a week from today, 12 January, is a significant moment for Stephen, working with a leading composer, arranger and producer (Sizemore has worked with film composer Howard Shore on The Hobbit trilogy, as well as on films such as Spotlight and The Twilight Saga), to produce an album of very attractive, minimalist-style music, impeccably performed and produced, which will appeal to those who might not normally listen to classical music. The music has a distinctly filmic quality, and if you like the music of Max Richter, Philip Glass, Yann Tiersen and the like, you will certainly enjoy this album!

Stephen celebrates the release of this album with a special concert at the Bechstein Piano Centre in Manchester on Friday 16 February from 6.30pm. Tickets/info

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First published in 2013, The Musician’s Journey by Dr Jill Timmons is a handbook for musicians who want to make the most of their specialist training to carve a successful professional career.

A celebrated pianist, who studied with, amongst others, György Sebők, Jill Timmons is also an acclaimed educator and leading consultant in arts management and mentorship. Her profound appreciation of the sensibilities of musicians and the exigencies and challenges of the musician’s life – from physical and emotional health to the importance of self-care and personal autonomy – together with years of experience within the music profession, make her the ideal guide and mentor.

The musician’s training, usually undertaken at specialist music school and/or conservatoire, is still largely focussed on learning to be a performer. Yet, today more than ever in the highly competitive world of professional music, musicians embarking on a professional career (and even those already established) need a good handle on the business side of the profession. Little practical support or teaching is offered in the other important areas of shaping one’s professional career – from learning how to create a website or develop a social media presence to entrepreneurship, and business and marketing skills – leaving many musicians on graduation thinking, (and often being asked), “So what do you do now?”.

Unfortunately, an attitude still prevails that taking a more businesslike approach to one’s career “devalues” the music. Fortunately, Timmons successfully debunks this absurd notion in The Musician’s Journey, and offers a wealth of practical information, inspiring case studies, and insights drawn from personal experience to help musicians develop, enhance and broaden their careers while retaining a strong self of personal autonomy, individual integrity and artistic vision – themes which run, fugue-like, throughout the book.

Organised in short, focussed chapters, with clear subject sections within each of them, and written in an accessible, conversational style, Timmons draws on numerous resources from religion and mythology to neuroscience, physiology to Feldenkrais, and much more, to illustrate her approach. This is not a self-help book in the traditional sense, and it is refreshingly free of “woo woo” pseudoscience and cod coaching. Instead, Timmons presents a meticulously researched, highly readable and non-elitist handbook which takes the reader on a detailed journey with specific goals and plans showing how to steer a path through the myriad complexities of the profession.

Too much is written on practicing music, finding one’s creative voice and finessing one’s performance skills; too little is written on the practicalities of forging a career in music (and in the arts more generally) in the 21st century. This book is a sensible yet inspiring manual on how to live a vibrant, fulfilling and successful life as a professional musician. Timmons gives much pause for thought with ideas and suggestions musicians may not have considered before, or were discouraged from considering during their training. In encouraging a good portion of “thinking outside the box”, Timmons’ book will also appeal to people outside the profession: her pragmatic and inspiring approach is applicable to anyone embarking on a freelance career.

Key points

  • Offers a strategic combination of creating a vision and then formulating a plan to help guide musicians in successfully developing a thriving career
  • Includes diverse true-life stories of music professionals who have used the process successfully
  • Focuses on entrepreneurship as a means for career development
  • Suggests general tips on grant writing and financial development
  • Guidelines for teaching entrepreneurship
  • In addition, the updated second edition considers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of musicians, and the arts in general

Additional resources, including downloadable forms and worksheets, are available from the book’s companion website

The Musician’s Journey (second edition) is published by Oxford University Press

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Letter(s) to Erik Satie

Bertrand Chamayou, piano

French pianist Bertrand Chamayou’s latest album features works by two musical mavericks, Erik Satie and John Cage.

“Erik Satie and John Cage are UFOs in the world of music, because they envisioned music through a completely different prism,” says Chamayou. “They are pioneers in the sense that, for many people, they changed the very idea of what music must be.” With this album ‘Letter(s) to Erik Satie’ – named after a 1978 work by John Cage, conceived for voice and tape loops – Chamayou pays tribute to these two idiosyncratic, innovative and influential composers, one born in Normandy in 1866, the other in Los Angeles in 1912.

Satie is best known for his otherworldly Gymnopédies and the hypnotic Gnossiennes; Cage for his works for prepared piano and the infamous 4’33”. Both composers challenged tradition and received wisdom in composition, and their influence and legacy is very present today. Cage admired Satie, to the extent that he put on a festival devoted to Satie’s music and was responsible for the first performance of Vexations, where a short piano piece has to be repeated 840 times, over the course of 18 hours.

There is nothing vexatious about this collection: it is dreamy and haunting, intimate and intriguing. The album opens with a rarity, John Cage’s All Sides of the small Stone, for Erik Satie, which was rediscovered in 2015 among the papers of the late composer and Cage pupil James Tenney (whose piece Three Pages in the Shape of Pear is included on this album). It’s a very Satie-esque work, recalling the serenity and harmonic simplicity of the Gymnopédies, with a bass line pattern that is a direct nod to Gymnopédie No. 1. It provides the perfect opener, setting the tone of the entire album in which short works gently segue into one another. And while none of the other works by Cage on this album come quite as close to Satie’s soundworld, pieces like In a Landscape and Dream share Satie’s contemplative, introspective character, his beguiling harmonic language and hypnotic metres.

The challenge of these deceptively simple miniatures and enigmatic musical aphorisms lies in creating balance and weight, contrast and continuity, with a clear sense of the melodic line and pulse. Chamayou, a master of the intimate, achieves this brilliantly, bringing poise and poetry to music that is both very well-known (the Gymnopédies) and that which is not. He avoids cliché in his performance of the most well-known of Satie’s works and is not afraid to bring a more robust clarity of tone to the Gnossiennes, highlighting the idiosyncrasies and nuances of this fascinating music. We find a similar sparkling clarity in Cage’s In A Landscape, where bell-like motifs in the upper register chime like gamelans over an ethereal soundscape which takes the listener to another place and time.

There is one of Cage’s works for prepared piano too, in which the instrument is given a curious, otherworldly sound – something which I am sure would have intrigued and amused Satie.

The juxtapositions between the Cage pieces and those by Satie creates an organic, intriguing homage from one composer to another, sensitively and imaginatively curated by Chamayou. The album works beautifully as both a recital disc but also as a continuous loop of music where new and different aspects of the music are revealed on repeated listenings.

Letter(s) to Erik Satie is released by Erato and is available on CD, vinyl and streaming

John Cage preparing a piano
Bertrand Chamayou
Erik Satie