By |

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

By |

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

By |

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