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

Music has always been a large part of my life.  My granddad used to play 7 instruments and work in radio, my Nana was a great pianist, my dad plays guitar and my cousin is a songwriter, so I was always surrounded by music. Playing music from a young age, I always wanted to play my own music and make things up rather than do my classical practice. Playing guitar, saxophone and piano gave me a diverse range of music to play and from which to draw influences.

It was only in my late teens that the prospect of pursuing a career in music became a real idea that would never leave me. My dad being a cinematographer meant that I was always going on set from a young age, so that, plus music, is probably where my love for film music came from, and from wanting to know more about the relationship between music and visual elements.

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

My family have played a vital role in my musical life.  If it wasn’t for their constant support and belief in me, then I might not be doing what I love today. I got my break into the film music world working with and alongside composer, Ilan Eshkeri, working my way up as an assistant then to additional composer where I then met more composers on different projects. Through this I was able to learn a variety of skills required to succeed in this industry.

It’s important to have a mentor to offer advice and guidance. I definitely learnt the art and skill of film music writing from Ilan; also from film music producer Steve Mclaughlin.

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

One of the greatest challenges so far would be taking the step away from working as an additional composer on larger films under composers to focus on my own composing career. It didn’t happen overnight, it was a gradual process over a few years. Film music is very much a service industry and as a composer, you need to be willing to adapt and shift your music style to accommodate each particular project. The key thing to remember is that the film is the most important thing, so being able to maintain a form of musical language that is true to one’s self whilst being able to accompany the visuals perfectly can sometimes be difficult, especially under the frequent tight time constraints that occur.

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

The greatest challenges in working in film is to remember that composing is really only a small part of the job.  You need to understand film and how to help tell the story alongside the images with which you are working . You also need to be accepting to the constant changes that might be asked of you and to be made in the music you are writing.

Working in film is all about collaboration, either with the director, producer or another composer. This can be such a rewarding process and hive of creativity. I am always blown away in how a particular scene from a film can be changed so much by the music. The pleasure comes when you know that you have got it right and the two art forms are working seamlessly together.

Of which works are you most proud?

Alongside my debut album PASSAGE that took about 3 years to write and release, I am most proud of the score I wrote to a documentary called ‘Three Identical Strangers’. I had a tight budget so resources were small but this forced me to think of different ways to achieve an immensely cinematic score. It was also probably one of the hardest films I had worked on. Tim Wardle, the director, knew exactly what he wanted which made the process so much easier and by the end we both had a clear vision of what we wanted to achieve in the music.  This is all a composer can ask for.

How would you characterise your compositional language/musical style?

I am classically trained but I like to combine a lot of electronics in my writing with more classical instrumentation. I feel that my writing style pulls me between smaller more intimate emotional music to then much larger, epic styles of music. My album PASSAGE touches on a line between the two, interspersing the more euphoric pieces with intimate solo piano works.

How do you work? What methods do you use and how do ideas come to you?

Most of my initial ideas will start in their simplest forms either in my head or on the piano. Other times an idea can be inspired by a sound or a rhythm, depending on the kind of music I am writing. I love to record a lot of found sounds and turn them into instruments using a sampler such as Kontakt,, making something unique and new.

Sometimes I can be working on a piece of music or cue to a film and be so focussed that 5 hours can slip by in a blink. It’s only when you take a break and listen back that I sometimes think, “how did I do that”?!

Who are your favourite musicians/composers?

Growing up, I listened to a large variety of music but it was listening to the music of Hans Zimmer (most notably his score to ‘The Last Samurai’) that got me interested in film scores, then film composers like Thomas Newman, Brian Tyler, Alan Silvestri, and the choral work of Morten Lauridsen and Eric Whitacre. I am also very inspired by more minimalist composers such as Michael Nyman, Phillip Glass, Brian Eno, The Cinematic Orchestra and Nils Frahm, to name a few.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Success to me is doing that which you love for a living and enjoying every minute of it. Music was my hobby and is now my career.

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

Try not to compare yourself to others. Everyone has their own path so it’s an impossible ideology that one composer’s path could be compared to a path of another composer. Try to enjoy the ever-changing road that lies ahead, there is no need to rush. I am naturally quite an impenitent person, so there have been times where I have had to tell myself to take a step back and reflect on my own achievements.

What next? Where would you like to be in 10 years time?

I am about to start work on Season 8 of SKY ONE’s action drama STRIKE BACK with Scott Shields. In ten years time I hope to have written a few more solo albums as well as working on larger scale films and productions, a goal which I am sure is shared with many other composers.

Paul Saunderson’s debut album Passage is available now. More information

Paul Saunderson is a British film composer with a career spanning over 40 feature films and 8 TV shows. His work includes RAW’S latest award winning documentary THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS (Tim Wardle dir.), Jim O’Hanlon’s 100 STREETS (Idris Elba + Gemma Arterton), Bill Clark’s heartbreaking true story STARFISH (Joanne Froggatt + Tom Riley) and most recently Justin Edgar’s gripping noir thriller, THE MARKER (Frederick Schmidt + Ana Ularu). Other works include collaborating on hit SKY One action series STRIKE BACK now in its 8th season, SKY Atlantic’s mystery thriller RIVIERA (Julia Styles) and MTV’s action adventure series THE SHANNARA CHRONICLES. Saunderson also wrote the music to Aram Rappaport’s debut feature RomCom SYRUP starring Amber Heard & Kellan Lutz and John Shackleton’s psychological gothic horror THE SLEEPING ROOM.

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

Since my earliest years, I’ve had an impulse to make up pieces at the piano, and that hasn’t really changed – except that eventually I learned to write them down, and nowadays often play virtual instruments via a keyboard. When enough people started asking me to write them something, it turned into a career.

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

Musicians and theatre-makers who asked me to write music for them, including dancer/choreographer Clare Whistler and director Jonathan Kent; and who listened, encouraged and offered constructive criticism, notably composers Stephen Oliver and Julian Grant, conductors David Parry and Brad Cohen, opera-directors Graham Vick and Richard Jones. Probably the most significant of all were two people at Glyndebourne, Katie Tearle and Anthony Whitworth-Jones, who commissioned my first published piece (the wind serenade Figures in the Garden), three community operas, and my first main-stage (and most widely produced) opera – Flight.

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

Trying to get the current piece to be as good as I believe it can be.

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

With a commission comes a deadline, without which I never finish a piece. More exciting, there is a date when you know certain musicians will be performing your piece in a particular place. The idea of these wonderful singers or instrumentalists is, in itself, inspiring.

How would you characterise your compositional language?

Pandiatonic, rhythmically driven, singable.

How do you work?

Dreamily and fitfully at first, as vague initial ideas start to emerge; then more continuously, as they gradually turn into stronger, more potent ideas. Mostly I work out pieces at the keyboard, but walking and cycling are also an important part of the process.

Who are your favourite musicians/composers?

Mozart, Stravinsky, John Adams

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

Write the music you want to hear.

Born in 1959 to architect parents, Jonathan Dove’s early musical experience came from playing the piano, organ and viola. Later he studied composition with Robin Holloway at Cambridge and, after graduation, worked as a freelance accompanist, repetiteur, animateur and arranger. His early professional experience gave him a deep understanding of singers and the complex mechanics of the opera house. Opera and the voice have been the central priorities in Dove’s output throughout his subsequent career.

Read Jonathan Dove’s full biography here

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A Land So Luminous – music by Richard Causton and Kenneth Hesketh, performed by The Continuum Ensemble under the direction of conductor Philip Headlam with outstanding soloists including soprano Mary Bevan, violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, pianist Douglas Finch, flautist Lisa Nelsen and cellist Joseph Spooner.

The disc features work for large ensemble, duos, trios and music for solo flute, cello and piano. Kenneth Hesketh and Richard Causton are amongst the foremost British composers of their generations, and ‘A Land So Luminous’ showcases their distinct compositional voices and musical craftsmanship, from Hesketh’s piquant, light-filled textures to Causton’s inventiveness and imagination. The music on the disc is diverse and atmospheric, and draws inspiration from an eclectic catalogue of sources, including Heinrich Hoffman’s 19th cautionary tales for children, Der Struwwelpeter (‘Shock-Headed Peter’), the poetry of Marina Tsvetayeva, Fats Waller, shamanic ritual and Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, K. 622. The title track ‘A Land So Luminous’ takes its name from a piece by writing by 17th century French philosopher-poet Cyrano de Bergerac.

All the works on the disc reveal strong musical gestures and means of expression. Hesketh’s works are expansive, visual and colourful: in Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher (‘Don’t Suck Your Thumb’) clarinet and piano dart and weave in a playful yet faintly grotesque dance; while in the second ‘Netsuke’ long sustained sounds emerge overlaid by a wistful clarinet melody gradually build to an unsettling climax. Causton’s ‘Threnody’ is a haunting setting of the English translation of a poem by Marina Tsvetayeva. The piece relies on the musicians being sensitive about their roles, resulting in a work of concentrated poignancy. Mary Bevan’s crystalline yet highly expressive voice is complemented by elegaic clarinets and a delicate piano part. In ‘Sleep’, a work for unaccompanied solo flute inspired by a poem called ‘Mythistorema’ by George Seferis, Causton creates an unsettling aural image of sleep, beset by frequent changes in time signature and tempo. Lisa Nelsen, on flute, displays control and sensitivity in her performance. The night-time theme continues in ‘Night Piece’ for solo piano, based on the clarinet line from the slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and performed by Douglas Finch, who brings a delicate clarity and tenderness to this dreamlike work.

Recommended

Release by Prima Facie Records

Meet the Artist…… interview with Kenneth Hesketh

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Brighton-based pianist Helen Burford presented a varied and creative programme of music in a Sunday afternoon concert as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival. Praised for her innovative and joyful approach to programming, the concert included three world premieres by contemporary British composers Georgina Bowden, Sadie Harrison and Barry Mills interpersed with works by Bill Evans, J S Bach, Claude Debussy and Chick Corea.

The concert opened with what I have come to regard as Helen’s “signature piece”, the haunting and hypnotic Incarnation II by Japanese composer Somei Satoh. Twelve extraordinary minutes of an absorbing soundscape, the work relies on primarily on the prolongation of vibrations (repeated notes) and is an exercise in control on the part of the performer who is given free will in the work as to how long it should last. Through these devices, the work conjures up the most extraordinary sonorities – horns, cellos, bells, drums. This was followed by the first premiere of the afternoon, ‘Hymn for Piano’ by Georgian Bowden, which also explored the sonorities of the piano in contemplative chords and gentle movements around the keyboard, and was played with a simple sensitivity by Helen.

Helen is noted for unusual programme juxtapositions and at first placing a prelude and fugue by J S Bach with Bill Evans’s jazz classic ‘Peace Piece’ may seem curious. But in the fact it proved fascinating, for the arabesques in Bach’s writing were neatly reflected in filigree improvisatory motifs in Peace Piece, all set over an ostinato bass line redolent of Satie’s Gymnopedies. This also set the scene for Sadie Harrison’s Four Jazz Portraits, written for Helen and inspired by jazz greats Bill Evans, Thelonius Monk, Fats Waller and Albert Ammons. The four miniatures all contained witty references to these jazz greats, and were delivered with deftness and humour by Helen.

The third part of the programme stepped away from jazz and into music inspired by the landscape. Debussy’s Bruyeres from the second book of Preludes evokes heather (or a town in northern France). This was paired with Barry Mill’s ‘Evocations’ whose titles – Falmer Pond with Ducks, Geese and Gulls, The Rowan Tree and Clouds forming, Clouds dissolving (Homage to Debussy) – suggest similar settings to Debussy’s work. The works by Mills recalled Debussy in their colourful harmonies and trimbres, and swirling movements.

The concert closed with a triptych by Chick Corea – ‘Where Have I Loved You Before’, ‘Where Have I Danced With You Before” and Where Have I Known You Before’ – all played with affection and an acute sense of their improvisatory nature.

Details of Helen’s forthcoming concerts here

www.helenburford.com

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(photo credit: Gareth Barton)
(photo credit: Gareth Barton)

Violinist Fenella Humphreys and pianist Nicola Eimer celebrate the 150th anniversaries of Jean Sibelius and Carl Nielsen in a concert combining works for violin and piano by these two composers, together with new works by contemporary composers.

Alongside works by Sibelius and Nielsen, the duo will premiere a new set of five pieces composed on the footprint of Sibelius’s Five Pieces op.81 by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Alasdair Nicolson, Matthew Taylor, David Knotts and Anthony Powers.

Programme

Jean Sibelius: 4 Pieces for violin & piano, Op.115
Cheryl Frances-Hoad: New work for PUR 4 Feb 2015 after Sibelius’ 5 Pieces for violin & piano, Op.81
Alasdair Nicholson: New work for PUR 4 Feb 2015 after Sibelius’ 5 Pieces for violin & piano, Op.81
David Knotts: New work for PUR 4 Feb 2015 after Sibelius’ 5 Pieces for violin & piano, Op.81knotts da
Matthew Taylor: New work for PUR 4 Feb 2015 after Sibelius’ 5 Pieces for violin & piano, Op.81
Anthony Powers: New work for PUR 4 Feb 2015 after Sibelius’ 5 Pieces for violin & piano, Op.81
Jean Sibelius: Sonatina in E for violin & piano, Op.80
Interval
Carl Nielsen: Violin Sonata No.2 in G, Op.35

The concert takes place on 4th February 2015 at the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre. Further information and tickets here

‘Fenella Humphreys responds to its elegiac reflection and technical display at top flight level’ (Orchestral Choice CD, 5* BBC Music Magazine)

‘Nicola Eimer is an outstanding artist’ (The Strad Magazine)

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Ronald Stevenson

A concert exploring a selection of piano works written by two distinctive voices of Scotland’s classical music scene in the 20th century. Ronald Stevenson, whose 85th birthday year it is, is a recognised giant of British Music and an authority on the life and work of Ferruccio Busoni. Perhaps most renowned as a composer for his gigantic Passacaglia on DSCH, the programme will feature some of Stevenson’s smaller piano works.

Ronald Center

Stevenson is honoured in conjunction with a composer rarely heard of even within Scotland during his own lifetime, Ronald Center, whose centenary passed this April. Ever a reclusive character, it is only recently that his music has begun to re-emerge with the first ever survey on record of his complete piano music, by Trinity Laban’s Richard Carne Junior Fellow in Performance, Christopher Guild. A classicist at heart, Center’s music, with its influences of Britten, Prokofiev and Hindemith, stands very much in contrast to much of Stevenson’s.

This FREE, unticketed concert will appeal anyone with an interest in British Music, and those with a passion for making musical discoveries.

PROGRAMME:

Ronald Stevenson: Komm, Susser Tod
Ronald Stevenson: Sonata Senerissima
Ronald Center: Giglot and Toccata
Ronald Center: Six Bagatelles
Ronald Stevenson: Wegenlied aus Alban Bergs Oper ‘Wozzeck’
Ronald Center: Piano Sonata

Performed by:

Alex Lewis, Madelaine Jones, Sally Halsey, Clare Simmonds and Christopher Guild.

Venue:

Thursday 27th June, 6.30pm, Peacock Room, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, King Charles Court, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London SE10 9JF (public transport: DLR Greenwich Cutty Sark, Riverbus Greenwich Pier)

Pianist Christopher Guild will feature in a forthcoming Meet the Artist interview.