Till night is overgone premiere, review and second performance

Till night is overgone was successfully premiered by Ensemble 10/10 last Wednesday 16th, and the Guardian was there to review it. The ensemble did a great job of controlling the pace of the piece, and managed to pull off the bar-less sections of the piece very effectively.

They will be performing the piece (and indeed the exact same programme - works by my near namesake Ben Gaunt, Ian Stephens, Anthony Gilbert, Stephen Pratt, Edwin Roxburgh and the late Steve Martland) again in Manchester on Thursday 31st October, at the RNCM. That concert is part of the quite ridiculous New Music North West festival, featuring the music of about 80 composers born or based in the North West of England.

Till night is overgone

My new piece for Ensemble 10/10, Till night is overgone, will be premiered in Liverpool on the 16th October. Full details here. It will receive a second performance in Manchester a couple of weeks later, date and time TBC. 

This piece was written as part of a Sound and Music Portfolio project, and is scored for an ensemble of clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, violin, cello and double bass. The title is from a James Joyce poem from his collection Chamber Music, and continues to explore similar musical ideas to my last large piece, cloud chamber music.

Ensemble 10/10

Having handed in my PhD (for now) last week, I can now get back to writing music on a regular basis! My next piece will be for Ensemble 10/10, the contemporary music ensemble of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, as part of the new Portfolio scheme by Sound and Music. It will be scored for clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, violin, cello and double bass, and performed some time in late 2013/early 2014.