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Gillian Whitehead  

Hotspur

Duration: 35' 00" Year: 1980
for mezzo soprano and chamber ensemble

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    clarinet, clarinet/bass-clarinet, violin/viola, cello, percussion (marimba, 9 drums in high to low sequence, drum of fluctuating pitch, bass drum, 5 suspended cymbals, ching - Thai finger cymbals, bell tree, rasp, 2 woodblocks, 3 temple blocks, wood chimes)
  • Programme Note

    This monodrama for mezzo soprano and chamber sextet, commissioned by Northern Arts UK, tells of the 14th century North of England warrior Henry Percy (Hotspur), seen through the eyes of Elizabeth Mortimer, in a striking ballad sequence written by Fleur Adcock.

    Whitehead’s imaginative score combines exotic and arresting instrumental colours, a strong dramatic vocal line (often with flamboyant flourishes) and an admirable overall conception of the mood changes and tonal graduation of the work. (William Dart, NZ Listener)

    She has the rare gift of knowing when to us nightmarish vehemences and when to be utterly straightforward and calm. (Roger Covell, Sydney Morning Herald).

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Annea Lockwood  

Monkey Trips

Duration: 35' 00" Year: 1995
for chamber ensemble including non-western instruments and slides

  • Instrumentation
    2 wind, 2 strings, piano, 2 percussionists, non-western instruments
  • Programme Note

    Monkey Trips is based upon the Tibetan Buddhist metaphor of the six states/realms of being which we constantly recreate and assume to be reality, six “different kinds of projections or dream worlds” (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche). Each realm is associated with a particular instrument and the piece moves through them successively.

    The Heaven Realm (violin), realm of serenity and stasis in which the monkey dwells on her achievements, blocking out everything undesirable; the intrusion of another player draws her out of this solipsistic state and into dialogue.

    In the Human Realm (cello), realm of passion and intellect, the monkey becomes discriminating – exploring, comparing, reaching out to possess the pleasurable, but discovering that pleasure slips away and craving creates frustrations. However, the idea of unity emerges.

    Those frustrations impel a retreat into the Animal Realm (bass clarinet), away from intensity into the habitual, rooting around in a more limited world, clinging stubbornly to the safely familiar, whether painful or comfortable.

    Then a desperate feeling of starvation sets in, the realm of the Hungry Spirits (flutes); visions of open space and of plenty turn into deprivation. A thirsting for what monkey remembers she once had becomes insatiable. Always reaching out but never realising that in order to drink, you have to first open your throat.


    The Hell Realm (percussion): a feeling of being trapped in a small space, of struggling to control this self-created imprisonment. The more she struggles, the more solid grow the walls until rage is exhausted. Then the monkey begins to let go, and suddenly sees that the walls are self-created, the realms are self-created. She breaks through into open space.

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Gillian Whitehead  

Outrageous Fortune

Duration: 1h 58' 00" Year: 1998
a chamber opera in two acts

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Kit Powell  

Piece of 4

Duration: 45' 00" Year: 1980, r. 2007
a piece of four players

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Chris Adams  

River Lavalle

Duration: 1h 00' 00" Year: 2011
A Chamber Opera (six singers, eight instrumentalists incl sound effects operator) presented as a 1940s style radio play detective story with an underlying environmental theme.

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Alex van den Broek  

Still Standing Silent

Duration: 50' 00" Year: 2009
for four musicians and a contemporary dancer

Video Sample
  • Instrumentation
    for B flat clarinet, tenor saxophone, percussion, contrabass - there is improvisation within set structures mostly for the tenor saxophone and contrabass
  • Programme Note

    In my work as a composer I have found bringing together classical and jazz musicians to be a rich and unique way of working. I have experience in both fields and my compositional talent and interest lies genuinely across the two art forms.

    This piece has been specifically composed for these performers and their unique sets of skills. Each performer is of a very high calibre and each possesses something special and unique in their playing and approach to music making. Mike Kime and Reuben Derrick often have moments of freedom as they are both accomplished improvisers. Gretchen Dunsmore and Mark Le Roche are classically trained performers with excellent skills and intelligent ears and minds. I knew that each of them would bring something to the work that would be unique and exciting.

    More recently my creative interest in movement and form has expanded to contemporary dance and I wanted to involve and include another artistic discipline in this work. Collaborating with Julia Milsom has been an exciting new venture for me. The nature of the sounds within the piece are highly applicable to contemporary dance and have been interpreted and expressed with considerable talent and skill by Julia.

    Layers of sound in time is a theme I have developed extensively in the piece. The layers interact, evolve, contrast, compliment, and conflict with each other to create a depth of space and time between them.

    The work is an exploration of the timelessness that comes in moments of deep introspection through evocative sounds and movement.

    Alex van den Broek

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Andrew Perkins  

Symphony - Der Bote

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 1992
for mezzo soprano and orchestra

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Tecwyn Evans  

Symphony - Organ

Duration: 53' 00" Year: 1995
for full orchestra and organ

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Michael Vinten  

Symphony - The Elements

Duration: 35' 00" Year: 2010
for full orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    3*2*3*3*, 4331, timp, 3 perc, strings
  • Programme Note

    Written in 2010 this is my first large-scale orchestral work.
    Each of the four movements is based on the idea of one of the four classical elements – Fire, Water, Air, Earth. It also contains an idea of the creation of the world.
    It employs a large orchestra and is fairly traditional in form and structure. Each of the movements has thematic links which unify the piece.

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Christopher Blake  

Symphony - The Islands

Duration: 43' 00" Year: 1992, r. 1995
for orchestra

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