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Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and make it your career?

Music has been something that I’ve always done and has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. When I turned13 I suddenly turned round and said that I wanted to learn the saxophone, despite never showing an interest in woodwind instruments before, and after a lot of badgering my parents eventually relented. I guess it never crossed their minds then that I would stick to it nor pursue a career in music. I was never a foot on the monitor, look at me person so I guess they were as surprised as I was that when I was bitten by the music bug I couldn’t give it up.

Composing was another surprise for me too. I’d always felt lost composing at school and university and I was never inspired to write anything other than the tasks we were set, and I dropped composing modules in favour of performance as soon as I could. But after university I found I needed to write new pieces for my students to challenge a specific area of their playing and it was this that got me writing again. All of sudden I was inspired and couldn’t stop.

Who or what were the most important influences on your composing?

My playing and composing has been influenced a lot by the different genres I love to play and listen too. I have a deep love of jazz, ska and classical music – especially ska and reggae! And its these styles that I like to mix together to make my own sound.

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

The greatest challenge so far was standing up and conducting the premier of my first orchestral piece I wrote in 2011. It was absolutely terrifying but I loved every minute of it!

Which performances/compositions/recordings are you most proud of?

My favourite piece that I’ve written do date is ‘Do Dodos Dance’ – I wrote it for the twtrsymphony who will be getting a woodwind trio to record this soon. It is quite a funny piece and it always makes me laugh listening back to it!

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?

I’ve played at all sorts of venues and one of my favourites in the Square in Harlow – nice stage, brilliant sound guy and with air conditioning 🙂

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

My favourite classical piece was one a friend reminded me of a couple of days ago – the wonderful ‘Song for Tony’ for sax quartet, was one piece I’ve loved performing before. My favourite piece to listen to (and play, but I don’t think I’ve every been with a group who’ve played it as good as the originals) is ‘Echo 4+2’ by Bad Manners.

Who are your favourite musicians?

One of my favourites is Ludiovico Einaudi – love his piano pieces. My other favourites are a lot of my contemporaries who I tweet with, and a big love for Mozart and things my hands will reach to play on the piano.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Most memorable concert would be performing at the Secret Garden Festival this year with the ska band I work with. It was rather muddy and hot! But an amazing atmosphere and great crowd!

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

Aspiring musicians need to be thick-skinned and not take any one else’s beliefs, comments or criticisms to heart. You need to be passionate about what you do and be happy with what you do. If you love it, someone else will. And remember to treat people how you’d like to be treated. Above all keep writing/performing/listening/reading and developing.

What are you working on at the moment?

At the moment I’m gearing up to go to Italy in November and tour around for the Donne in Musica female concerts they’ve arranged. I will be performing my new solo sax piece ‘My Life in Music’. Compositionally I’m working on some new educational string pieces as well as working on a new wind band for a local wind band to play next year.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

My idea of perfect happiness would be to be able carry on writing music for groups of all shapes and sizes and to hear my music performed. That an a big cup of tea.

Rachael Forsyth is a freelance composer, music teacher and all round woodwind player based in North London. She has gigged extensively with bands around the UK and her main musical loves are for classical music and ska. As a composer she writes lots of pieces she knows students will love to play as well as working on large scale orchestral and piano based pieces. Rachael has been invited to Italy in the Autumn to perform a solo saxophone piece on a tour around Rome. Highlights for her for the last year have been conducting the premier of her first orchestral piece in November 2011 and being given the opportunity to write a woodwind trio piece that is due to be recorded and released later this year. Her current projects include writing material for music exam boards, writing solo saxophone pieces as well as writing a Wind Band piece to be performed next year.

Links:

www.rachaelforsyth.co.uk

www.roorecordsmusic.co.uk

www.reverbnation.com/rachaelforsyth

Twitter @rachaelcomposes or @roorecordsmusic

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Who or what inspired you to take up composing and make it your career?

I heard a ‘cello being played on the radio (I can’t remember who was playing) when I was about 6, and just knew that was the instrument I had to play. I fully intended to just become an internationally famous concert ‘cellist (as you do!) but gradually composing took over.

Who or what are the most important influences on your playing?

As a composer I think my greatest influences came from the music I played at the Yehudi Menuhin School (I studied ‘cello, piano and composition there for 10 years). But some of my favourite composers are Britten, Ligeti, Beethoven and Prokofiev, as well as many composers who are writing today.

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

Trying to get a balance between composing and life: I’ve still not quite worked it out, although, after hardly going out the house for six months whilst writing an opera, I’m determined to be a bit better at it!

What are the particular challenges/excitements of working with an orchestra/ensemble?

Working with any group is exciting for me. I think as long as you treat musicians with the respect they deserve, and prepare parts properly (enough time for page turns!) then they will hopefully be receptive to your music.

 

Do you have a favourite concert venue?

Not really, as a composer you are just very grateful that your music is being played! Perhaps I’ll get pickier about this later in life! I had a mini opera performed in park in Hammersmith – a group of children gathered round and started answering the questions the singers were posing – it was fantastic!

Who are your favourite musicians?

I’ve mentioned the composers above…I’ve been so lucky and had such a fantastic time with all the performers who have performed my work: there are too many to list!

What is your most memorable concert experience?

I had my Concertino for Cello, Piano, Percussion and orchestra performed by the BBC Philharmonic as part of the BBC Young Composers Competition (when it still existed, back in 1996). I think that experience more than any other convinced me that I wanted to make composing my career. It was just mind-blowing to hear something that I’d only heard in my head played by a massive orchestra.

What is your favourite music to play? To listen to?

I don’t regularly play in public any more, but I play keyboards in a salsa band and am also learning jazz piano. I played in a rock band until recently and am soon to join a hip hop band – all very different from my composing life, and my past life as a cellist at the Yehudi Menuhin School!

Recently I’ve hardly been listening to music not directly related to my work (for my opera I listened to a lot of 1930’s dance music for instance as this was one of the main influences) because I’ve been writing so much – something I’m determined to rectify soon.

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

I think you just have to be determined to the point of utter bloody minded-ness. Part of the reason why I’ve managed to make a kind-of living out of composing is that I have always just refused to acknowledge that it might not be possible. I recently got a new composing job after applying for it twice – although I’ve applied for other opportunities up to ten times before I’ve finally been awarded them. A thick skin for rejection is very useful I think, and somewhere (however deep down) you need total self confidence in what you are writing, even if this partly achieved by self-deception…

What is your present state of mind?

My present state of mind is probably calmer and happier than I’ve ever been. Everything seems to be fitting into place recently and I’ve come to realise that life outside of composing is also very important (something which I perhaps didn’t when I was younger). The older I get, the happier I get, which is rather fortunate for me!

Cheryl Frances-Hoad was born in Essex in 1980 and received her musical education at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Gonville and Caius College (University of Cambridge) and Kings College London. She currently divides her time between Cambridge and Leeds, where she is the first DARE Cultural Fellow in the Opera Related Arts in association with Opera North and the University of Leeds. Cheryl won the BBC Young Composer Competition in 1996 at the age of 15 and since then her works have garnered numerous prizes and awards, including the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize (UK, 2007), the Sun River Composition Prize (China, 2007), The International String Orchestra Composition Competition (Malta, 2006), The Bliss Prize (UK, 2002), the first Robert Helps International Composition Prize (University of Florida, 2005), the Mendelssohn Scholarship (UK, 2002) and the Cambridge Composer’s Competition (UK, 2001). In 2010 Cheryl became the youngest composer to win two awards in the same year at the BASCA British Composer Awards (her setting of Psalm 1 won the Choral category, and Stolen Rhythm for solo piano won the Solo or Duo category). Many of her works have been generously supported by the RVW Trust, the Britten Pears Foundation, the PRS for Music Foundation, the Nicholas Boas CharitableTrust and the Bliss Trust.

In 2008 Cheryl was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Artists in Residence Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, enabling her to investigate aspects of the mind at the Psychiatry Department, which resulted in a new work for piano premiered at the 2009 Cambridge Clinical Neuroscience and Mental Health Symposium. Also In 2008, Cheryl was awarded the Wicklow County Council Per Cent for Arts Commission (Ireland), which enabled her to compose her first piano concerto, premiered by Bobby Chen and the Greystones Orchestra in May 2009.

Cheryl’s work has been premiered in some of the world’s most important chamber music venues, including the Wigmore Hall (Melancholia (piano trio), Excelsus (solo ‘cello) and My fleeting Angel (piano trio)) and the Purcell Room (The Glory Tree (for soprano and six instruments), and The Ogre Lover (for string trio)). Her debut CD of chamber works, The Glory Tree, was released in 2011 by Champs Hill records and received excellent reviews in The Times, Telegraph and Guardian, and was chosen as “Chamber Music Choice” by BBC Music Magazine in October 2011.

www.cherylfranceshoad.co.uk

Interview date: January 2013