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Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and pursue a career in music?

As a child my aunt was a pop singer, and released music; she also recorded my first song. My music teachers at school were supportive, and luckily Northamptonshire had a great music service when I was a child.

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

As a composer I have been lucky to have great female role models – Rhian Samuel, and Diedre Gribben briefly taught me at post-graduate and undergraduate levels.Sadie Harrison is a great mentor and teacher, an inspiring woman. I am also incredibly lucky to have worked with Kuljit Bhamra on his Tabla notation project. I was commissioned by Sound and Music to learn a new notation system for Tabla and compose new work for Kuljit, Anne Denholm and Joe Richards, mentored by Colin Riley. Most recently, the amazing soprano Gweneth Anne Rand is advising and mentoring me on composing for voice for my new work for Téte å Téte Festival in September 2020.

The music industry is tough and it is so important to have guidance and support. I have been lucky to be surrounded by strong female spirits throughout my life; even now my own grandmother has been teaching my son piano over Skype through lockdown. Her mother was a pianist (whom I never met), born in Greater Manchester, and studied in Vienna as a young girl. She married a lovely man from Lancashire who worked in the cotton mills and she ended up teaching and playing in the pubs of Oldham. My Grandma was keen to buy us a piano when I was little, so we got one from a pub in Wellingborough, where I grew up, and I began lessons as a child. Later I learnt cello, through the Northants Music Service at Junior School. I probably resonated with the cello after listening to the Bach Cello Suite’s, by Jaqueline Du Pré, on a tape cassette of my Mum’s that I think she was introduced to through contemporary dance. I grew up listening to a mixture of Bach, Dave Brubeck, Nina Simone, Carol King, The Specials, Madonna and Soul to Soul. Lisa Stansfield was my first proper concert at Sheffield City Hall with my Aunties, Mum and sister. As a young person I went to concerts at The Stables, a 40mins drive from where we lived, and performed in Youth Orchestra Concerts at The Derngate, Northampton. There was also a local Jazz night at a local pub which had some good players that my sister’s saxophone teacher let us know about, my Dad has always been really into Jazz and Blues and has been a huge influence on my listening. Latterly I became introduced to all kinds of music, North Indian Classical, Bartok, Shostakovich, Mahler, Saariaho, Cage, Oliveros, and all kinds of dance music, from electronica, drum and bass and Techno.

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

On leaving Newcastle University, I initially found it really difficult to find work, and was on The New Deal for Musicians. It was amazing as I got business advice and support from various professionals. I also got a Prince’s Trust grant to buy a computer as I had never owned one and then when I began working professionally as a cellist I had some guidance and awareness of the industry. A year later I was performing on The Mercury Music Prize (2000); perhaps without the chance to learn the ropes of being a self- employed musician I would not have had that opportunity. An RSI injury in my late 20s and early 30s was a real low point. My inspiring cello teacher at the time, Sue Lowe, built me back up again, emotionally and physically, which took several years. Luckily my composing career has been building slowly since then. My most recent career high was hearing my work for Tabla and String Quartet performed at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter just before lockdown in March. The work was for amateur performers from the Devon Philharmonic with professional Tabla player Jon Sterx. The musicians were amazing – with very little rehearsal time they performed with such vitality and commitment.

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

The pleasures often outweigh the challenges; however since the Covid-19 lockdown I feel many musicians and artists in general are facing huge barriers to their livelihoods. Currently I am composing new work for Fenella Humphreys, and have contributed to her Caprice’s project, funded mostly by Kickstarter (see her website). It is thrilling when performers like Fenella agree to perform and record your music. Fenella has a Youtube channel which is enabling new work to be premiered to wider audiences, so moving on from the devastating lockdown challenges, people are really trying to overcome them through digital platforms, and I just hope people can continue to contribute to artists’ projects financially right now, as so many freelance artists have lost so much work and income.

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

So much of my work, commissions and premieres have either been postponed or cancelled, and as an emerging composer, it is especially tough and heartbreaking. I only began composing again seriously after my son was born, so I am a bit of a late starter, and I just hope my energy and determination carries me though this unstable period. Some amazing opportunities have still managed to happen. I am currently working on a new Imaginary Opera project Song of Isis, Goddess of Love, for the Tête-à-Tête Festival 2020, which is a truly inspiring, inclusive and exciting festival to be part of. This wonderful opportunity is a lifeline as it is still going ahead in September, regardless of Covid restrictions. See the wonderful blog from Bill Bankes-Jones for more information. The practicalities of working on this are huge – devising and rehearsing new work with actor/singer Sèverine Howell-Meris over Zoom will be particularly unique to these times. I will be documenting this process online on the blog but really also hope to share our work in a real live format somehow.

Our performance date is, hopefully, 9 September 2020 (please follow us on @imaginaryopera or @laurareidmusic to find out when/if the performance will be going ahead live at The Cockpit Theatre, London). Again finances are tight, and Tête-à-Tête are fundraising for the festival on their website.

I am working with writer Chris Aziz, and animator Martha King to provide online content. I am hoping to include a virtual chorus, using singers and friends around the UK to participate in some capacity from their homes. Working with an all-female team is exciting, but as it is our first opera it is incredibly daunting at the same time. Networks such as Engender, run by producers at the Royal Opera House, are proving to be so important right now to get things to happen. Hearing leading figures like Gweneth Ann Rand and director Adele Thomas talk at the last meeting was inspiring and really encouraging.

Of which works are you most proud?

My commission for the Dorset Moon ‘Celestial Bodies’, performed to over 1,000 members of the public via headphones underneath Luc Jerram’s amazing Museum of the Moon.

How would you characterise your compositional language?

Eclectic, diverse, contemporary folktronica.

How do you work?

Sporadically. In the old days pre-covid, I had routines and time to think. But now it’s in odd moments when I am not doing childcare or home-schooling, mostly in the evenings since lockdown, although I am usually a morning person. I am really looking forward to, and feel incredibly lucky to be going to Made at The Red House, Aldeburgh, hosted by Wild Plum Arts, which will be an amazing opportunity to compose and think away from domestic responsibilities.

Who are your favourite musicians/composers?

My tastes are always evolving and changing. I currently love listening to Jill Scott, Tallis, and Bach. I really enjoyed listening to After Rain by Hildegard Westerkamp recently at the UK and Ireland soundscape conference in Sussex.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Happiness balanced with enjoying the process of composing and playing, and working on projects that inspire change and amplify narratives from the margins.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

Keep a sense of your self and what feels right to you. Learn the rules, and then how to break them. Nothing matters very much, except staying sane and positive. We all face challenges so try and focus on what you can do rather than what you can’t.

What is your most treasured possession?

My cello J

 

Song of Isis. Goddess of Love, with music by Laura Reid, will be premiered by Tête-à-Tête on 9 September. Further information here

www.laurareid.co.uk

@laurareidmusic

@imaginaryopera

https://imaginaryopera.wordpress.com/

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The title page of the first edition of Bach’s Goldberg Variations describes the work as music “for the refreshment of their spirits”. During this time of pandemic, people have turned to music not just to refresh but also to provide distraction, comfort and a sense of connection.

Largely confined to our homes and immediate vicinity during lockdown, we have missed the social support of family and friends, and the freedom to enjoy our everyday lives as normal. People turn to music in times of difficulty, often choosing music which is familiar and nostalgic which creates a sense of stability in uncertain times. Listening to music we know well reminds us of the life experiences that have shaped us.

In a time of enforced solitude and increased anxiety, familiar music also offers comfort and reassurance, reminding us of who we are as people. It might be a favourite pop song from our teenage years or a memorable orchestral work we enjoyed at a concert; music creates an emotional narrative at a time when we may find it difficult to articulate the current narrative. It can help us build resilience, enables us to preserve an important sense of our identity, and acts as an aide memoire of previous events – a concert perhaps – enjoyed in less stressful, pre-pandemic times. It also allows us to participate in something larger than ourselves, even while we live apart, and as such can feel positive and life-affirming. This is nothing new of course: throughout history, people have turned to music to provide comfort and a place of retreat or escapism.

Classical music in particular has long been regarded as “relaxing”: Haydn wanted his music to “give rest to the careworn” and the internet is full of playlists designed to help us “chill out”. Calm, soothing and (usually) slow music has been proven to alleviate stress, lower heart rate and blood pressure, and ease depression. Tense music is not a good companion during tense times, and it is was a deliberate piece of programming on the part of BBC Radio Three to re-broadcast Max Richter’s intentionally soporific ‘Sleep’ – an 8-hour post-minimalist lullaby – a few weeks into the UK’s lockdown.

In addition to listening, people are also making music, and despite the concert and opera venues being closed, there has been a remarkable amount of music available online – from high-quality livestreams to ad hoc concerts in musicians’ homes, and much more besides. Music connects people – from audiences at a concert engaged in the collective act of listening to musicians playing together in ensemble – and the loss of these important connections due to lockdowns and restrictions on gatherings has meant that people are finding creative ways to continue to interact through music. From singing on balconies or giving impromptu performances from their gardens for neighbours to more sophisticated multi-performer concerts via Zoom, people will always find ways to make and engage with music as a means to refresh, inspire, comfort and support.

Postcript: During lockdown, I felt the loss of live classical music very keenly and as a consequence found it painful to engage with the artform as a listener. Instead, I found myself enjoying my son’s music choices, playlists he created to accompany all the cooking we did together (he’s a professional chef) when he lived with us during lockdown. Formerly a fan of hip hop, I found his music choices had shifted in the two years since he moved into his own home: when The Stranglers’ Golden Brown came up on one of his playlists, I felt a great rush of memory of being a teenager again, and I recalled how mesmerized I had been (and still am) by the harpsichord accompaniment to this song. Now that my son is back in London and has resumed his career, his playlists on Spotify remind me of the time we spent together during lockdown – cooking, foraging, discussing politics, and teaching him to drive.

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In this video from the Wigmore Hall, internationally-acclaimed double bass player Leon Bosch talks openly about his musical life and, with painful honesty, his early life growing up in South Africa, where, as a teenager, he was jailed for engaging in anti-apartheid activism.

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British pianist Sarah Beth Briggs has built her reputation on performing and recording the “core canon” of piano repertoire, and she has a particular affinity with the music of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert. Her playing is always elegant and tasteful, intelligent and sensitive, and in this new release she brings all these qualities to repertoire which she clearly adores.

‘The Austrian Connection’ traces the compositional links between four Austrian composers: Hans Gál (1890-1987) was perhaps the last great composer to uphold the tonal Austro-German tradition that began with Haydn and Mozart, and, arguably, reached its apogee in the music of Schubert (and also Brahms). Sarah Beth Briggs is a keen advocate of Hans Gál’s music – she made a world premiere recording of his Piano Concerto in 2016 – and the three preludes included on this disc perfectly complement the three sonatas which precede them.

As the focus of this disc is on Austrian connections, it is perhaps fitting that the opening piece is Haydn’s variations on “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser”, Austria’s first national anthem. From a simple hymn theme, a set of four variations follow, and where one might expect grandeur, given the theme’s significance, Sarah instead offers an intimate and charming account which provides the perfect introduction to one of Haydn’s best-known and loved piano sonatas, Hob. XVI/50 in C.

This sonata was written in 1794, during a visit to London, where Haydn discovered and – if this sonata is anything to go by – delighted in the sonorities of the English fortepiano. He fully exploited the instrument’s boldness, resonance and range, and expanded technical capabilities, in a sonata which is rich in inventiveness, characteristic wit and joie de vivre. The quirks and frivolity of the outer movements are contrasted with an Adagio whose beautiful cantabile qualities Sarah fully appreciates in an elegant and spacious reading. The translucent clarity of the piano sound in the upper registers is somewhat reminiscent of a fortepiano (though without the latter’s distinctive “twang”!).

By contrast, Mozart’s Sonata in A minor K310 is restless and urgent, full of striking drama and dissonances, but like the Haydn before it, this sonata has a slow movement of operatic lyricism, interrupted by a turbulent middle section. Sarah is sensitive to the music’s chiaroscuro, responding deftly to Mozart’s mercurial emotional shifts and the underlying intensity of this work.

In the Sonata in A, D664 we find Schubert at his most genial, though that affability is offset by the shadowy poignancy and tender intimacy of the middle movement. However, a sunny mood is soon restored in the finale, a movement of joyful light-heartedness. Sarah achieves a persuasive warmth of tone and sensitive phrasing which highlights the glorious song-like melodies in this sonata. There is chiarscuro and drama aplenty here too, and once again, these emotional voltes faces are handled with an eloquent sensitivity (Sarah is not a pianist who exploits the “psychobabble” surrounding Schubert’s life, preferring instead to focus on the details within the score to allow the music to speak for itself).

Hans Gál’s ‘Three Preludes’, composed in 1944, have classical characteristics interleaved with distinctly modern twists: the pithy quaver figurations and playful cascades, and quicksilver wit in the first and third Preludes are redolent of Haydn, while the middle one, “Lento Tranquillo”, recalls Schubert in its graceful melody and introspective demeanour. Sarah brings virtuosic sparkle to the first, a quiet, reflective poetry to the second, and a beguiling humour and lightness of touch to the third, which disappears into the ether in a delicate flurry of notes.

An enjoyable “recital disc”, which takes the listener on a varied and stimulating Austrian musical journey.

‘The Austrian Connection’ was recorded in January 2020 at The Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall in Leeds, produced, engineered and edited by Simon Fox-Gál, and released on the Avie label

Meet the Artist interview with Sarah Beth Briggs