Music Patron
I have posted about Music Patron before – a brilliant initiative to support emerging composers by enabling all of us to become old fashioned ‘patrons’. How? By donating as little as £10 a month to a composer of our choice – and Music Patron have nearly 30 to offer us. While these small donations will not support a composer, they may just provide enough extra cash to allow them to give up that bit of teaching (or even bar work!) and spend more time composing.
In return patrons get to interact with ‘their’ composers and get invited to events – such as the on line ‘conversation’ I logged into last week: writer/conductor Lev Parikian and composers, Emily Peasgood, Stuart MacRae and Lisa Robertson discussing what ‘nature’ meant to each of them in the context of their music, how they take the sounds of nature and turn them into music and what it meant to them to connect with the natural world through sound.
The conversation was indeed fascinating – and you can either watch or listen to it for yourselves here on the Music Patron site.
However, what I found even more fascinating were the clips of the works of all three composers which were also to be found on the ‘conversation’ page. Two bird related pieces from Lisa Robertson who lives in the Western Highlands – Seabird Cities and a beautiful short piece performed by the Royal National Scottish Orchestra, am fior-eun in which an eagle ‘soars’ above, across and around the orchestra.
Cladonia Bellidiflora, a quite eerie but very atmospheric piece for violin and cello by Stuart MacRae inspired by the symbiosis in lichens, and a brief extract from his opera Anthopocene, set in a world transformed by climate change.
And possibly the most fascinating, if only because they were so unexpected, four works by sound artist, Emily Peasgood. These included a four minute piece capturing the sounds of biodiversity from within London’s freshwater ponds and a short and magical choral film about a call for climate action. Birds and Other Stories was another choral film which combined a delightful ‘graphic score’ of birds with black and white photographs. And finally Isle of Sound – a 20 minutes celebration of the sonic diversity and uniqueness of different parts of Thanet in Essex combining sounds familiar to each Thanet town.
If you have half an hour to spare I would seriously suggest that you listen to at least one of them. Meanwhile, if you want to know more about Music Patron, its composers and how you could become a patron, check in to their website here.
And watch this space. I think they will be doing more on line events and we may even host some live events here in Hampstead Lane. More when I know more.
The Kyan Quartet
We had a very splendid evening last week with the Kyan quartet who, reflecting their diverse nationalities, played pieces by Peter Warlock and Claude Debussy and then brought us right into the 2020s with Caroline Shaw’s wonderful Entr’Acte and this delightful piece, Snow Petal, by Sun Keting, a friend of viola player Wanshu Qui. It was lovely to have Sun Keting join us for the concert.
The Kyans are now off to Salzburg where they will do a two year masters degree as a quartet – not something that is offered in this country. We look forward to seeing them again on their return.
And finally – Rune Glerup
Rune Glerup is a Danish composer who works with instrumental, electro-acoustic and electronic music; he was featured in a Radio 3 concert at some point last week. I am slightly hazy as to what or when as I was so fascinated by what I heard that I tracked the piece (and composer) down via Google – and then forgot where I had heard it.
The composition in question is called About Light and Lightness – a violin concerto written for German violinist Isabelle Faust. And I am really only mentioning it because, if you are interested, you can hear it on Rune Glerup’s site. I thought it was amazing. It is only just over 20 minutes long and I thought you might enjoy it…
Meanwhile…. Have you booked for…
27th November – Shirley Smart and Dominic Ingham – jazz cello and violin.
£30 to include supper and wine – to book go here.
For other future happenings in at Hampstead Lane and elsewhere – see our Upcoming Events page.
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