Click below to read about a selection of projects and commissions
The Debussy Studies Project
12 new Studies on the same titles as the Debussy Etudes
Book I
Luke Stoneham: Pour les cinq doigts
Timothy Salter: Study in thirds
Anthony Payne: Study in fourths and tritones
Jean Hasse: Sixths
Howard Skempton: Octaves
Jonathan Powell: Piece montée (pour les huit doigts)
Book II
Ian Wilson: Pour les degrés chromatiques
Michael Finnissy: Pour les agréments
Martin Butler: Lucifer’s Banjo (Repeated notes)
Katharine Norman: Fuga interna (Opposed sonorities)
Julian Anderson: Pour les arpèges composés (Etude no 3)
Andrew Toovey: Techno Stomp (Chords)
13 Variations on Rameau’s Le Lardon modelled on Variations, Interlude et Finale by Dukas
Variation I Martin Butler
Variation II Katharine Norman
Variation III Colin Mathews
Variation IV John Woolrich
Variation V-Barcarolla Jonathan Powell
Variation VI Luke Stoneham
Variation VII Morgan Hayes
Variation VIII- Misreading Rameau (Etude no 4) Julian Anderson
Variation IX Peter Wiegold
Variation X – Rameau Remembered Gabriel Jackson
Variation XI Howard Skempton
Tango (avec le lardon vu par Dukas) Michael Finnissy
Finale: The Haunting Bough John Casken
I Towards the Rosy Cross (1885-1891)
II Montmartre (1892-1897)
III Monsieur le pauvre (1898-1910)
IV Chapters turned every which way (1911-1914)
V Diversions (1914-1920)
(Peter Wiegold’s Honfleur (after Satie) was composed to be performed in the cycle)
October 31 2004 Birtwistle Games Festival Southbank Centre London
A sequence of games and rituals happening every hour, and inspired by Birtwistle’s Harrison’s Clocks and the fantasia by 17th-century composer Edward Gibbons, What Strikes the Clocke? which chimes the hours from one to twelve. Conceived with percussionist Richard Benjafield, and composers Alison Cox and Morgan Hayes, all the games were created for the particular set-up of a piano enclosed in a circular battery of percussion like a crystal in the body of a watch. The events included composers and musicians of all ages and backgrounds from children to distinguished professionals. These included members of Endymion; students from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, pupils of the Purcell School, Marylebone C of E and Hemel Hempstead schools and members of Creative Roots, an arts association for people with experience of mental ill-health. The event culminated in the Grand Ritual; 60 one-minute compositions by a range of composers, aged between ten and seventy.
Some of the premieres included Christina Athinodorou Midnight Pulses, Diana Burrell Antiphon, Jonathan Cole Fizz-whistle Bang, Tansy Davies A Coiled Spring, Anthony Gilbert Swallowtail, Simon Holt Nebeltanz, Brian Inglis Tintinnabulation, Alison Kay Minute, Stephen Montague Just a Minute, Branka Popovic What strikes the Clocke?, Dobrinka Tabakova What strikes the Clocke?, Ian Vine seventy objects, Raymond Yiu Birds whose voices run with light, among many others.