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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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Guest article by Joanna Wyld

In anticipation of the premiere of our new opera, The Gardeners, on 18 June at Conway Hall, Robert Hugill has written about the genesis of the work

The story of how I came to write the libretto, and the significance of that experience, starts a little further back. When I was studying music at university, I loved writing about it, but I also loved writing it – under the guidance of Robert Saxton – to the extent that I went on to take a Masters in Composition, taught by George Benjamin, Rob Keeley and Jonathan Cole. But I also had to make a living, and composing is a notoriously precarious profession, so I channelled my creative instincts into writing about music. Soon, I felt pretty confident that I’m a better writer than composer, and have loved writing every programme note, every CD liner note, since. Yet alongside that experience there has always been the urge to produce something original for its own sake, so when a friend asked if I might be interested in writing a libretto for Robert Hugill, not only did I jump at the chance, I also felt rather stupid that the idea hadn’t occurred to me before. ‘Librettist’ seemed the perfect fusion of my interests, my loves – but was I up to it?

I met Robert Hugill at his house and he welcomed me with tea in his sunny kitchen. Absurdly, this is the only time we’ve met in person, but there’s a long history of composers and librettists working together remotely and through correspondence, so we’re in good company. Robert’s vision for The Gardeners was clear from the outset. He had read an article about a family of gardeners tending war graves and felt that this subject was ripe for operatic treatment, exploring issues of radicalisation as well as family dynamics. The Dead themselves were to feature, audible only to the Old Gardener – at first. The written style was to be pithy, using short phrases, and adapting lines from poetry by A.E. Housman and Rabindranath Tagore.

Before starting to write, I ordered myself a volume of Tagore’s texts and started to get to know them, as well as re-reading the article. I’d originally envisaged poring over other libretti – I’m a bit suspicious when I encounter writers who don’t also read extensively in order to learn from others – but Robert’s ideas were so clear that the first scene came naturally, and it felt right not to muddy the waters with too many other voices. I wanted Robert’s voice to come through, as well as my own and those of Housman and Tagore. That seemed enough.

However, I did have an idea of what I was aiming to avoid. Ronald Duncan’s libretto to Britten’s chamber opera, The Rape of Lucretia (in which I’d played the flute years before in a production directed by Ryan Wigglesworth), has come in for some criticism for its rather trite sewing up of a complex and sensitive subject. My aim was to dodge where possible the same pitfalls, by allowing tensions to surface and ambiguities to breathe without neatly resolving them. As a result, The Gardeners asks more questions than it answers, but with issues such as radicalisation this seems appropriate; this is a contemporary problem with no easy solution.

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For the choice of language, my experiences as a composer came into play. I love setting words to music (I still occasionally write songs for my band), and it helped me to remember that process whilst writing this libretto. Words which, when combined, sit well together and possess a musicality, a distinct rhythm, inevitably lend themselves to musical treatment. I also remembered reading letters between Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath discussing the weight and density of words, and how the energy of two paired words needs to be complimentary rather than overly similar. Hughes wrote to Plath about her poem, Touch-and-Go: ‘… there is a traffic confusion I think in “Fierce flaming game of Quick child” – do you think “Quick flaring game Of child, leaf or cloud” because the “Fierce flaring” are two consecutive likenesses, and have been too often the double tap of the hammer… Well in verse the tendency is to follow an adjective that’s working with an idle timing one, so that adjectives tend to go in pairs. Well in “fierce flaring” an old couple has come up…’ Plath changed “fierce flaring” to “quick flaring” and the difference is palpable. I bore this in mind and tried to avoid ‘traffic confusion’ or ‘the double tap of the hammer’.

As for characterisation, I hoped to give a clear sense of each personality without resorting to types, allowing room for each of our artists to bring their own interpretation to their character. The Angry Young Man’s frustration can be damaging, but we also understand why he resents the invaders of his country, and he grows during the course of the opera. The Old Gardener casts a long shadow over his family, and the Gardener is caught between these two strong figures, trying to keep the peace. The Mother and Grandmother offer insight and wry observations in their attempts to mend relationships; both do their share of peace-making and eye-rolling, but neither is spared the sardonic wit of the other.

I sent each scene to Robert at regular intervals. He would tweak the text as needed, and in turn would send back his composition as it unfolded – and I would enjoy listening as The Gardeners grew. At each stage we discussed the direction of the plot, and although the whole process took some time – we’re both busy people with other commitments – it felt remarkably straightforward. I hope to have the chance to write more libretti in future, but in the meantime, I loved working with Robert Hugill, I’m really proud of The Gardeners, and I look forward to its premiere. See you there.

The Gardeners by Robert Hugill with libretto by Joanna Wyld receives its world premiere at Conway Hall, London, on Tuesday 18 June 2019, conducted by William Vann

Further information and tickets

© Joanna Wyld, April 2019

img_0904Joanna Wyld was born and educated in London before reading Music at New College, Oxford, where she was an Instrumental Scholar. She was listed as one of the Women of Distinction in 25 Years of Women at New College.

Joanna established Notes upon Notes in 2004 and has been writing liner notes, programme notes and other copy for a wide range of artists and record labels ever since. She also worked on Stop The Traffik for Steve Chalke and Cherie Blair, a book used as a resource by the UN.

Joanna won the 2014 OUP spoof Grove Dictionary article competition, as well as both second and third runner-up slots.

She curates playlists for classical streaming service IDAGIO, and recently appeared in a Southbank Centre video introducing a concert at the new Queen Elizabeth Hall. Joanna is Editor at Odradek Records, and has written her first libretto for an opera by Robert Hugill.

Notes upon Notes