Ok, it's been a bit of a while since my last round up, so bear with me - quite a lot to cover!
Let's start with the Brighton Guitar Quartet, which is the principal focus of my classical guitar pursuits, and, increasingly, of my somewhat jejune efforts as a composer and arranger. We kicked off 2025 with our usual "pre season friendlies". In what's become something of an annual tradition, we played in the ensemble category of the Springboard competition in Hove. This year was adjudicated by the guitarist and arranger Gerard Cousins, for whom we played extracts from Vincent Lindsey-Clark's amazing (if somewhat gruelling) piece "Away to New Zealand". I think we all agreed that Gerard gave us the most insightful and attentive commentary we've ever had at Springboard. (In passing, I also had to dep for Rachel Baker in one of my teacher Gregg Isaacson's other quartets, the Power Players - thanks for having me guys!)
We followed up Springboard with a brief, half-hour set at Hove Library as part of their ongoing Live Lounge series, turning in "New Zealand" again, alongside pieces, or extracts of pieces, which will feature in our 2025 set, including Turina's "Miramar", local composer Bernd Rest's "Velo!" and my own arrangement of John Barry's "You Only Live Twice", surely the greatest of all Bond theme songs!
Our first "proper" concert of the year is on Saturday, May 24th, when we'll be making our third appearance at the lovely St Laurence Church in Falmer. Other shows this year include Christ Church in Worthing ( June 17th), St Mary de Haura in Shoreham (August 31st), and St Mary's, West Blatchington (September 6th), with more to be announced. Full details and updates on our website.
More classical guitar fun... In early April I was delighted to be back at West Dean College in West Sussex for a three-day ensemble workshop led by Andrew Gough and Vincent Lindsey-Clark. (Vincent will get a few more mentions here, so from now on he's just "Vincent"!)
The quartet I played in worked on Lee Sollory's lovely arrangement of Albéniz' "Córdoba", Mark Houghton's "Latin Nights" and an arrangement of, er, "Billie Jean" by Michael Langer. As ever at West Dean there was an informal, if still nerve-racking, student concert. I've written here previously about my recent struggles with public solo playing, so it was a challenge to play in front of this lot (especially Andrew and Vincent!), but I played Roland Dyens' "Letter mi-longue" and Vincent's "Rio by Night". Here's the former:
Thanks to Andrew for the seamless organising and brilliant, insightful ensemble leading.
Having, for personal reasons, taken most of 2024 off from workshops, festivals and the like, I've lined up a lot this year, including a Bach workshop led by Steve Gordon in Lewes later this month (having attended one in March), an AKCG session in Bexhill led by Kianush Robeson in June, the Royal Greenwich Guitar Festival in July, Gerald Garcia's weekend at Benslow Music in Hitchin in October and the fourth Guitars by the Sea (with Vincent as the guest ensemble leader) down here in Brighton a couple of weeks later! There are still places left at the GTBS, so please consider it - the previous incarnations have been a blast, and Vincent is a fantastic ensemble leader!
GTBS is co-led (with Steve Gordon) by the seemingly indefatigable Jon Rattenbury; Jon and his colleague, guitarist and luthier Nick George also organise the twice-yearly Platfrom event at which Brighton-based amateur classical guitartists (along with, on this occasion, a mandolin player and singer songwriter!) get to play for each other, with Jon's excellent Brighton Guitar Group ensemble as the linchpin. I played Vincent's duet "Paraguaya" with my great buddy Paul Dallaway and for a solo turned in Dyens' "Lettere mi-longe" again. Thanks to Jon and Nick for organising such a great event, and thanks to my great friends Nick and Smilia for coming along to support us!
Final classical guitar whatnot. I hosted the inaugural "Second Thursday Club" at my place last week. It's an ahem, "safe space" for (mostly) my teacher Gregg's students to play for each other, solo, or in various combinations, with a bit of ensemble "fun" sight reading thrown in for good measure. It was a blast! Thanks to my BGQ colleague James Hartt for agreeing to host the next one - looking forward to this being something of a tradition!
On the composition front, my efforts over the last month or so have been largely focussed on a submission for a New Music Brighton concert to be given by cellist Bela Emerson and vibraphonist Adam Bushell in June at the Friends Meeting House in Brighton. The call for submissions was a rather unusual one: "Scores should be almost entirely "non-standard", using graphic or textual instructions (eg. durations, dynamics, mood/effect) to encourage a high degree of improvisation and interpretation. Some standard notation or other strictly musical prompts (eg. modal centres, a tone row, chord charts) may be included, but kept to a minimum... "
In the end, I went almost fully "graphic", and given that I'm not exactly "visually skilled" that was something of a challenge, but for what it's worth, I've posted the "score" below, necessarily without audio, of course. The concert in june will be recorded so I'll post a score video shortly afterwards. If I get aroud to it I'll write about the process of creating the piece at more length at some point, but for now, for context, here's my programme note:
Death, and its proximity, have been a major feature of my recent experience. This piece is at least in part a response. It takes its form from the Buddhist “death meditation” Maraṇasati, in which the meditator considers the nine stages of corpse decomposition, contemplating the inevitability of death. What strictly musical cues there are derive from the Lutheran chorale “Every Mortal Soul Soon Must Perish” – a Christian response to death to complement the piece’s Buddhist framework. Minimal direct musical instructions are given; rather, the score is intended to inspire the performers to respond to the piece's overarching themes and intentions.
On more "formal" compositional footing... Recently I was totally floored on hearing Händel's aria "Laschia Ch'io Pianga", from his opera Rinaldo, towards the end of the fantastic Netflix adaptation of The Leopard, and immediately set about arranging it for guitar quartet. It still needs quit a bit of work in terms of dynamics and general performance instructions, so I'll have to wait until next time to post a fully-realised score video, but until then here's a work-in-progress MIDI realisation:
I haven't made it along to much live music so far this year, but there have been a couple of highlights. Having returned to live music making last year, my son Frank embarked on his first national - and, indeed, international! - tour, supporting the amazing Halina Rice. We caught the first of Frank's two shows at the Old Market in Brighton, and it was sensational. It's great to see Frank back in his groove again.
Then last weekend saw the final concert in the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra's centenary season, and what an undertaking it was, with the orchestra tackling Messiaen's mammoth Turangalîla-Symphonie. Joanna MacGregor, who's done such great work as the orchestra's Music Director over the last three years, conducted, with Joseph Havlat on piano and Cynthia Millar playing the ondes Martenot. It was a truly astounding show, with an almost sold-out audience on its feet at the end. Let's see what next season brings!
A few other music things, then. Last March, to mark International Women's Day, I put together a "Women in Modern Music" playlist on Spotify, celebrating the often under-sung contributions of women composers and improvisers to avant-garde, post-modern or experimental music since the 1960s. This year, I updated the playlist and wrote an extensive blog post about it. Here's the playlist - all 26 hours of it!
Following my attempt at a list of my favourite albums of 2024, I thought I'd start tracking my listening to new album releases quarterly; here's what I came across from January to March. And in the meantime, here's a snapshot of my overall listening since the beginning of the year:
Finally, a word about the Lewes-based Musicians of All Saints, whose excellent work I've mentioned here previously. There are three concerts left in their 2024-25 season. On Sunday, June 15th, the viola quartet the Barefaced Violas will be playing at St Peter's Church in Offham; a week later, the MAS string quartet will also be at St Peter's; and the season closer sees the full MAS string orchestra return to St Michael's Church in Lewes. Full details are available on the MAS website. Please get along to some of the shows if you can - it's vital to support grassroots music making of this quality.
And before I finish with some recent online reading and listening, I have to mention what's been the highlight of non-musical life so for this year. I don't normally touch on "retail politics" here (although some of my somewhat heterdox views can be inferred from my various reading lists), but last month I was thrilled to meet Maurice Glasman, the architect of Blue Labour, while hanging outside Cadogan Hall in the interval of a Spectator event. I was honestly like a gushing fanboi! Anyway...
Reading, listening, viewing, etc
Composer David Bruce on Jonny Greenwood's relationship with the ondes Martenot
Nathalie Forget Demonstrates the ondes Martenot
(Yes, I went down a bit of an ondes Martenot rabbit hole after the BPO's Messiaen concert... )
Samuel Andreyev in another fascinating conversation with composer and music engraver James Ingram
Andreyev again: Boulez at 100
NS Lyons: American Strong Gods - Trump and the end of the Long Twentieth Century
Kathleen Stock: How to free the universities; woke waste is ruining academia
The Rest is History: 4-part Belgian Congo series
Classical Nerd: George Crumb; the method behind the magic
Sam Harris: The Legacy of Christianity - A Conversation with Tom Holland
Ted Gioia: The New Aesthetics of Slop
More from Gioia: What's happening to students?
And more: Nine Rules for Technology
Michael Henderson in The Spectator: What happened to Radio 3?
Spectator Holy Smoke podcast: An interview with James Orr
Spectator Chinese Whispers podcast: Rana Mitter on the legacy of Sun Yat Sen
John Gray in the Spectator: A Christian revival won’t save the deluded West – but it might teach it to accept its fate
Joanna Williams in Spiked: Paddington - patron saint of the liberal elites
Mark Almond in The Critic: WNO’s curtain call? Behind the ovations for Britten’s masterpiece looms the death of opera in Wales
Unherd: Freddie Sayers in conversation with Maurice Glasman (yes, him again!)
Unherd: Florence Read in conversation with Slavoj Žižek