This summer has been a very creative one, providing me with new challenges and experiences.
I started the summer by recording a new work by Esam Al-Jowder for bassoon and piano and ended it with a very enjoyable concert as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival playing piano quintets and sextets with some extremely talented musicians.
I started the summer by recording a new work by Esam Al-Jowder for bassoon and piano and ended it with a very enjoyable concert as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival playing piano quintets and sextets with some extremely talented musicians.
The start of the summer saw me back in Bristol recording a new composition for bassoon and piano by Esam Al-Jowder for his PhD portfolio. Esam is a composer from Bahrain and it was very exciting to work closely with him on this new piece. I have included a copy of his bio on the right. Esam used to play the bassoon and has a great love for the instrument and I feel this really comes across in his piece, especially in the last movement; Playful. The other two movements are entitled Supplication and Cynism. The writing is highly-rhythmic, which Esam tells me comes very much from the traditions and the cultures of Bahrain and the Far East in general. Even though he has spent many years studying in England he is determined not to lose his Eastern identity and distinctive compositional 'voice'. I would like to thank Prof. John Pickard for this exciting opportunity, Esam for writing such an accomplished and idiomatic bassoon piece and David Bednall, an excellent accompanist. |
Thanks must also go to the Catley Early Music Fund and BIRTHA (The Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts) who helped fund the project. I hope to have a copy of the recording to put up here soon, I will let you know when I do.
As I said I ended my summer with an equally enjoyable project; 'Hot Chocolate At 10'.
We performed Mozart's 'Quintet for Piano and Winds', Francaix's L'Heure du Berger, and Poulenc's 'Sextet' in a candlelit concert at Old Saint Paul's church with players from the RCS as well as some very talented locals! The concert was great fun, and a great success being one of the best attended concerts of the whole series during the Fringe Festival. I learnt a lot from the other players and it was a brilliant experience to be playing as part of the Edinburgh Fringe, especially with such fantastic repertoire. |
Many thanks to Calum Robertson (clarinet) for organising the concert as well as to the other players; John Bryden (piano), Sarah Park (piano - Poulenc), Taylor MacLennan (flute), Julian Scott (oboe), and Chris Gough (french horn). I, too, would like to thank the Arts Council of Northern Ireland who very generously awarded me a SIAP Travel Award to help make my involvement in this project possible.
I will leave you with a recording of the Francaix performed by the Berliner Bläserquintett (1947) with Francaix himself at the piano. The first movement, Les Vieux Beaux, opens with a comic dialogue between the oboe and the bassoon, it really is a delight and a piece that I did not know before this concert, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
I will leave you with a recording of the Francaix performed by the Berliner Bläserquintett (1947) with Francaix himself at the piano. The first movement, Les Vieux Beaux, opens with a comic dialogue between the oboe and the bassoon, it really is a delight and a piece that I did not know before this concert, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.