EVERYDAY OCCURRENCE - (70 mins Running Time - No interval)
Published by Camden Music
baritone/soprano/contralto/2 violins/viola/cello/double bass/flute/oboe/clarinet/bassoon/horn/trumpet/percussion
Everyday Occurrence is one act chamber opera lasting about one hour, for soprano, contralto, and baritone.It is essentially a contemporary love triangle relevant to everyone, but set in the hard working and often pressurised life of an orchestral musician on tour.
The self important conductor,the orchestral manager intent on making as much money as he can for himself,and the overbearing opera diva, all push the overworked and depressed principal oboist over the edge into a drinking session with dire consequences.
tt is a love tragedy with funny scenes, and was recieved with a standing ovation when it was premiered in Scotland by the Macfalls Chamber orchestra in 2006, with singers Gwion Thomas, Angela Tunstall, and
Andrea Baker in 2006.
SAHARA --------chamber orchestra and solo oboe-----------{2007}
I played the flute profesionally for many years and often sat next to
oboist John Anderson listening to his amazing sound and phrasing and
wishing that I could have a chance to write for him.
Then in 2002, music lover David Bowerman commissioned a work "Sirocco" for oboe,violin,and orchestra which John Anderson and New York violin virtuoso Ittai Shapira premiered with the ECO in the Barbican 2003 and subsequently recorded on Black Box.
In 2005 I had the most amazing religious experience and it occured to me
afterwards that it is maybe through music that the world can
unite-that arguing or even discussing religion, just seems to create more missunderstanding.
So it is in that spirit that "Sahara" is dedicated to followers of
the Prophet Muhammad "in friendship" and like "Sirocco" uses ideas taken
from North African music:North African percussion, North African rhythms,and the oboe, which is a sophisticated version of the North African Shawn.
These elements are explored using the harmonic language of jazz master John Coltrane.
"Sahara" is in three movements and is approxamately 20 mins long.
DAVE HEATH -------------Rhapsody of the spheres for solo organ {2008}
Re-reading the programme notes on John Coltrane's extraordinary album "A love supreme" - that all vibrations lead to God, got me thinking maybe music is actually a better form of describing what is going on at an atomic and subatomic level than words: in other words that the music of the greatest composers takes you to heaven rather than try to describe it in words.
With that in mind I wrote "Rhapsody of the spheres" as a sort of prayer to the universe where I wanted by using the most majestic instrument of all, the organ, to describe the beauty of existence.
There are elements of electronic trance music as well as more traditional textures.
Rhapsody of the Spheres is in one movement slow-fast-slow and is dedicated to my eldest son "Lord" Sean who gave the first performance of it at St Martins in the fields London in 2007.
UP ON THE ONE-----------------DAVE HEATH {2009} for full orchestra,solo trumpet, electric guitar and beatboxer.
I have loved Miles Davis's playing ever since I first heard him in the early 1970s.
What I heard and still hear in his playing is total honesty and truth.He wouldn't compromise what he was trying to do musically or what he wanted to say. However, a tribute to Miles would not, for me, be about playing his music. Instead, it has to be about going forward musically.
Miles's autobiography ends with the comment "Up on the one", and I have taken that as the title of this piece.
CONFLICT AND RESOLUTION
In 1993 as I was appointed composer in residence with the Scottish Ensemble. so my family and I moved to Scotland.
Living in Collessie Fife I gradually became embroiled in the Celtic Scene and was known locally as the English guy who goes to Celidhs.
When the director of the ensemble Clio Gould commissioned a violin concerto from me I wanted to write something really fresh and pure and do almost the opposite to what I had done musically before, and the result was "The Celtic" which has now been played and recorded wordwide on several instruments.
The Celtic got me noticed by Scottish folk legend Phil Cunningham who then asked me to orchestrate and conduct his Highland and Islands suite-an epic work he had had in mind for many years.The Highland and Island Suite opened the 1997 Celtic Connections festival.
Phil wanted the piece to be harmonically and rhythmically his own and so my breif was quite narrow in that respect----------however the result was pretty epic and many sections of it have been played since.
The brief for "Conflict and Resolution" coudn't have been more different.
Film director Robin Criton rang to say he had this project going in the South of France involving Celtic and Catalonian musicians and as the original composer John Moore was too ill to carry on, would I take over------------but " do your own thing"
The last time anyone had said anything like that was in 1993 when the wildman genius of the violin Nigel Kennedy asked me to do the most "OUT' piece I could imagine which resulted in a near riot in Minneapolis when I used the first ever beatbox choir, smoke and lighting effects and Nigel swallowed a lump of hash and went beserk [in the best sence of the word}.
The original version of "CONFLICT AND RESOLUTION" was very cleverly constructed and worked well as it was, but in order to blow it up to the size of needing an orchestra, needed some serious thinking about.
The elements were classical cellist Francois Gauman,three Catalan folk musicians and three Scottish folk musians.After sereval conversations and meetings I decided to use the different styles as contrasting each other, then during the piece gradually they start playing together.
Francois during our initial converstaions told me his cello was made in Catalonia by his grandfather and had been played by Pablo Casals.One of Pablo Casals favourite tunes he played was the traditional Catalan "Song of the bird"s ' of which Francois was also very fond of,and it became the linking theme of the piece.
I don't want to give too much about the piece away but to say this is about conflict and resolution the cello and harp acting as a kind of John the Evangalist figures from the top of the Caligu mountains commenting on the action in a theme developed from Pablo Casals song of the birds, and finally leading the players from both countires into a harmonic and celebratory ending. At some point the orchetra is in avant garde stuyle underneath the war sections at other times it comments on or reflecting the main themes.
"Conflict and Resolution" is dedicated the great musician and peace maker ------------- cellist Pablo Casals.
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