Early 2022 updates
The world is a changed place in 2022. I have been listening to DakhaBrakha a lot this week and watching the news pretty constantly.
At the same time I have been composing a piece about power. It is called Voices of Power. It uses a new text by my collaborator Jessica Walker and will be premiered at the Three Choirs Festival on the 28th of July by the Philharmonia Orchestra, choir and soloist Hilary Summers. The composing is supercharged with emotion because of the war in Ukraine. The work is about aspects of power, from Boudica through to Jacinda Ardern and it’s message is that the age of the strong man, the aggressive leader whose self or national interest is above all else is done with. Those leaders will not help the human race overcome the challenges it is facing and we must embrace a different kind of power. A compassionate, collaborative, long term thinking type of power. The type that is emerging from voices such as Johanna Sigudardottir, Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg.
Right now I am setting text from the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt as she pens the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Lines like We are one world, And that which Injures any one of us Injures all of us. Have taken on a very real meaning for me as I compose this week. I hope I can do the words and the people who are represented in this work justice and that in July it will resonate with an audience forever changed by the events this February.
A work that I finished at the end of 2021 will premiere very soon (29th April 2022). The piece is a new saxophone concerto called Tracks In The Orbit. I wrote it for the jazz legend Iain Ballamy, and it is a co-commission from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Iain and I spent a lot of time collaborating last year and I feel I have really connected with his playing and his style to bring this together with my compositional voice in the concerto. It is going to be a high energy and deeply lyrical gig in April, conducted by Fiona Monbet. The piece will have two more performances by the Brittany Symphony Orchestra and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra later in 2022.
To read more about both of these works please follow this link: https://www.vbpr.co.uk/news/making-tracks/
In between the BBCNOW and the Three Choirs Festival performances I will be off to Rotterdam and Norfolk for work on The People’s Cabaret with local communities and my co-creator Jessica Walker. Jess and I are working with people to connect their experiences to our writing and add an extra dimension of social cohesion to the work. All of this will culminate in a full premiere of the work at 3 different festivals in 2023.
Finally, I am really thrilled to announce that I have been appointed the British Council and PRS Foundation Musician in Residence for Brazil for 2022. I have started working with Santa Marcelina Cultura on ideas for a new work during the residency. I will also be delivering various masterclasses and workshops across their programmes and to composers writing new operas. There will be performances of many of my existing works and beyond the residency we have started talking about a new large scale commission. So lots of exciting plans afoot for my first partnership in South America.