Composer of the month: Emily Crossland

Emily Crossland is a graduate of the University of York, completing a BA (Hons) in Music in 2007 and an MA in Community Music in 2010. She remains involved in academic life as a tutor at this institution and as a visiting lecturer for York St John University and the University of Leeds.

It was during her academic studies that Emily's excitement for collaborative and theatrical music developed, alongside an interest in community music and a passion for Javanese gamelan. The combination of these influences has shaped Emily's work as a composer, leading her into collaborations with artists whose experience of the world is very different to her own. Emily is particularly interested in exploring the art made by those who are often excluded or disabled by society – something she investigates as one of the founding artists of Engine Room Theatre, a devising company of performers and makers from diverse backgrounds.

Emily has recently been commissioned through the BBC Performing Arts Fund and was one of six composers selected to take part in the 2010-11 Adopt-a-Composer scheme run by Sound and Music, the PRS Foundation and Making Music. Her work has notably received performances at Gaudeamus Muziekweek, the National Concert Hall Dublin, the Glasgow West End Festival, and on BBC Radio 3. Emily Crossland’s new work 1v4(v) will be performed by the Late Music Ensemble, conductor James Whittle, at the next Late Music concert, Saturday 1^st August at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York.

Steve Crowther: Can you describe the work to us?

Emily Crossland: 1v4(v) is a drawing together of many different aspects of music and music-making that interest me. At the core of the musical material are elements of Indonesian music, which is something I’ve been particularly into as a performer for the past ten years. Particularly, the piece features heavy nods to Balinese kecak (rhythmic, interlocking vocal chant), Javanese gendèr cengkok (patterns played on a metal-keyed instrument) and the notes of the pelog scale found in Javanese and Balinese gamelan. 1v4(v) also marks a deeper foray for me into more theatrical music and audience involvement – both of which I have explored before but not in combination and never before embracing the light-hearted and fun approach taken in this piece.

SC: Do you write at the piano, do you pre-plan? Can you describe the compositional process?

EC: It varies greatly from piece to piece. There’s usually a lot of scribbling involved though! I’ll often start by writing down as much as I think I know about a piece at the beginning of the process and then move forward by seeing where the links are and what coherence draws the ideas together. I’ll often continue by trying things out at a piano or on my violin or at another instrument (1v4(v) was partly written sat among the beautiful instruments of Gamelan Sekar Petak). The draft version of a piece usually exists in a combination of staff notation, words and other doodles. I’ll then work out from there what sort of notation is needed for the final score and tend to write up in Sibelius, unless there is no staff notation needed whatsoever, when I’ll generally write by hand.

SC: Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a sound in mind?

EC: I always adore projects in which I can get to know the performers and create the piece in true collaboration – it appeals to me a great deal to develop a piece of music that reflects more than one voice and more than one way of seeing the world. Most of my work is in response to a commission or a specific request, so I often have a starting point in mind before getting underway with the writing of the piece.

SC: How would you describe your individual ‘sound world’?

EC: That’s a tricky one! I know the gamelan influence often comes through in my work, to varying degrees. I am also a big fan of dissonance, so at least a few crunchy chords find their way into each piece. But as I’m often exploring a different challenge or collaborating with a different ensemble each time, there tends to be a really different focus for each piece.

SC: What motivates you to compose? 

EC: It’s something that has always made the most sense to me. As a child learning the violin, I went away after my first lesson and wrote a piece for the open strings we’d just learnt to pluck. I recall my teacher being astounded that I’d thought to make up my own music. I couldn’t get my head round that reaction. What else did she imagine I’d do with this new knowledge she’d given me?! I continue to write because I continue to be intrigued and because there are so many sounds I haven’t heard yet.

SC: Which living composers do you identify with or simply admire?

EC: Someone I met recently and have a great deal of admiration for is Judith Weir, not just for her music but for her generosity of spirit and the value she places on the next generation of creative musicians, regardless of background/influence/genre. 

SC: If you could have a beer and a chat with any composer from the past, who would it be and why?

EC: I find myself fascinated by the composers that the history books don’t record. I’d love to find out why their stories didn’t get told and how it would have shaped our understanding now if they did. So I’d love to have a beer with Anon. and Trad.!

SC: Now for some desert island discery – please name eight pieces of music you could not be without, and then select just one.

EC: I’m terrible at this – my musical tastes change from moment to moment. I think I’ll struggle to find 8 genres I couldn’t be without but let’s give it a go... [30 minutes later]… I think the 8 pieces that would have lasting ‘desert island’ value for me would be: Shostakovich’s 8^th String Quartet; Ladrang Pangkur (Javanese gamelan); Maya by The Incredible String Band; O Primus Homo Coruit (Aquitanian polyphony); Junk Box Fraud by Donnacha Dennehy; Death and the Maiden as performed by Waterson Carthy; The Boy in the Bubble by Paul Simon; and An Animated Description of Mrs Maps by The Books. If I had to pick just one I think it would be O Primus Homo Coruit because the first time I heard it was such a turning point in my musical life and I find it astonishingly beautiful.

SC: …and a book?:

EC: Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse or The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter.

SC: …a film?

EC: Everything is Illuminated

SC: … and a luxury item?

EC: My violin

Composer of the month: William Brooks

William Brooks studied music and mathematics at Wesleyan University (BA 1965), then received degrees in musicology (MM 1971) and composition-theory (DMA 1976) from the University of Illinois. He has been associated with John Cage as both performer and scholar; he played in the world premiere of HPSCHD and has several times directed productions of Cage’s Song Books. Brooks taught at the University of Illinois (1969-73) and at the University of California (1973-7), then worked as a freelance composer, scholar and performer before returning to the University of Illinois (1987). In 2000 he took up his present post at the University of York, and in October 2014 he reduced his York commitment to half-time to enable him more extensively to pursue composition and research in the United States. William Brooks’ new work, Crazy Jane, will be performed by Everlasting Voices at the next Late Music concert, Saturday 4^th July at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York.

Steve Crowther: Can you describe the work to us?

William Brooks: William Butler Yeats opens a (relatively) late publication, Words for Music Perhaps, with seven “Crazy Jane” poems. Crazy Jane is built in part on a real figure, but in these poems she appears as an alternate voice for Ireland, a kind of complement to the Irish national figure of Kathleen that had preoccupied Yeats at the turn of the century. In her brusque forthrightness, her anti-clericism, and her earthy sexuality she is both an intriguing and forbidding person. Consistent with the title of the collection, most of the poems include a kind of refrain that suggests the possibility of a musical setting. But as far as I know I am the first to set the entire group of seven poems for forces other than solo voice. 

SC: Do you write at the piano, do you pre-plan? Can you describe the compositional process?

WB: Sometimes. Usually. And no, I really can’t describe the process. There isn’t one process, after all; there are many. I do like to know how time will be structured; perhaps that’s a given. But, of course, when writing open-form works, even that must be set aside.

SC: Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a sound in mind?

WB: I generally don’t write music unless there is a performance forthcoming. Hence I often know the performers, and I like that. And most definitely I write with sound—and action—in mind. I abhor midi (though I use it when necessary), and I try whenever possible to sing, shout, dance, thump, conduct, or otherwise make tangible what I’m writing.

SC: How would you describe your individual ‘sound world’?

WB: I hope I don’t have one, but I probably do. I seem to write a lot of shapes, gestures—not enough repetition, I think. (On the other hand, I just finished a short piece with a Gertrude Stein text that is nothing but repetition!) I want people to remember things, the good and the bad, so traces of the past are often evident. I’m a historian at heart (though I have many hearts: mind your back, Doctor).

SC: What motivates you to compose?

WB: People. Community. Love. The opportunity to give.

SC: Which living composers do you identify with or simply admire?

WB: All the good ones are dead. Didn’t you go to school?

SC: Behave, there must be someone…!

WB: Well, in truth I ducked the question because an answer usually results in being assigned to one camp or another. Uptown, downtown; minimal, maximal; Tonal oder Atonal ... that kind of thing. I’m pretty lavish with admiration, actually; if you give me a score chances are that I’ll find something that interests me. (How else could I get excited about obscure pop songs from 1915?) As for identity, I’m as confused as ever.

SC: If you could have a beer and a chat with any composer from the past, who would it be and why?

WB: We’d have to have a party—maybe, since I’m American, a barbeque. George (not Charlie) Ives, Ockeghem, Clara Schumann, George Gershwin, ... But to tell the truth I’d rather host some performers: Maria Callas, Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, Ole Bull, Patsy Cline, Bix Beiderbecke ... now THAT’s a party!

SC: Now for some desert island discery – please name eight pieces of music you could not be without, and then select just one.

WB: Today, the one is Charles Ives’s Second Orchestral Set. Tomorrow, it might be any or none of the following: Josquin’s Ave Maria, Roscoe Holcomb singing anything, Chopin’s mazurkas (especially the senza fine), Porgy and Bess, Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Dr. Subramaniam playing an alap, Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes” (with the words: “Be kind to your web-footed friends ...”). Of course, I’m choosing all these for effect; in reality, I almost never listen to recordings, I’m astonishingly ignorant about almost all repertoire, and I truly think I’d prefer my desert island to sound like a desert island.

SC: …and a book?:

WB: The Bible? Finnegans Wake? A 5,000-page anthology of poetry? Richard Taruskin’s history of music? (Just kidding ...)

SC: …a film?

WB: A dead heat between Top Hat and Some Like It Hot. But I’m in despair about giving up the Marx brothers ...

SC: … and a luxury item?

WB: My Mac—or if that doesn’t qualify as a luxury, my iPad. But what’s the wifi like on a desert island?

Composer of the Month: Charlotte Bray

Charlotte Bray has emerged as an outstanding talent of her generation. Her music exhibits an uninhibited ambition and desire to communicate and is described as vivid, exhilarating,and richly expressive with a lyrical intensity. Charlotte has written for some of the world’s top ensembles and festivals, including the LSO, LPO, London Sinfonietta, Aldeburgh and Aix-en-Provence. In 2013, she was awarded a MacDowell Colony Fellowship and a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship. Charlotte Bray's Those Secret Eyes will be performed by the Albany Trio at the next Late Music concert, Saturday 6th June at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York.


Steve Crowther: Can you describe the work to us?
Charlotte Bray: Those Secret Eyes is loosely inspired by Shakespeare's Macbeth, and principally the plays’ female characters: Lady Macbeth and the Witches. Set at night, it holds dark undercurrents of suspicion, sin, superstition, and mistrust. Governed by the principal themes of appearance and reality, and ambition and guilt, the piece is driven by a cruel, dry energy. This work forms part of an ongoing cycle of Shakespeare-inspired works that the composer is writing for piano trio.

SC: Do you write at the piano, do you pre-plan? Can you describe the compositional process?

CB: I sometimes use the piano, sometimes my cello and sometimes just paper. I write by hand, usually until I have an entire draft of the piece, and then I transfer to Sibelius. I pre-plan to have a clear overview of the piece and refer to the plan throughout, adapting it along the way as the piece evolves.

SC: Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a sound in mind?

CB: Of course it is wonderful when one does know the performers one is writing for and this makes the experience special- to be able to imagine the exact sound and expression of a performer. If I don’t already know a performer or ensemble I search for recordings to listen to first. 

SC: How would you describe your individual ‘sound world’?

CB: Personally I would describe my work as a journey of expression, of self discovery, if you like. Others have described my sound world as: highly diverse textures, emotional breadth, relentlessly energetic, a lightness of touch.

SC: What motivates you to compose? 

CB: Hopefully whatever commission I’m currently writing! But more generally, the desire and impulse to create and explore through music, to discover, to develop particular fascinations further….  

SC: Which living composers do you identify with or simply admire?

CB: Unsuk Chin

SC: If you could have a beer and a chat with any composer from the past, who would it be and why?

CB: J.S.Bach and his wife- I’d like to ask them which pieces she wrote!

SC: Now for some desert island discery – please name eight pieces of music you could not be without, and then select just one.

CB: Bach Goldberg Variations, Beethoven Symphony #9, Schubert Nacht Und Träume, Stravinsky Petrushka, Bartok Piano Concerto #1, Copland Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (#5), Oliver Knussen Ophelia’s Last Dance, Wayne Shorter Infant Eyes

Bach Goldberg Variations

SC: …and a book?

CB: a huge poetry compilation

SC: …a film?

CB: Game of Thrones (if that can count instead of a film)

SC: … and a luxury item?

CB: my camera

Composer of the Month: Philip Cashian

Philip Cashian's music has been commissioned, performed and broadcast worldwide - recent performances have included the Ojai Festival (California), Musikmonat (Basle), Cleveland Performing Arts Series, the St.Paul Chamber Orchestra, BCMG, Aldeburgh Festival, Spitalfields Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and the BBC Proms as well as performances in Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Holland, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand and China. Philip Cashian’s Dark Inventions will be performed by the ensemble Dark Inventions at the next Late Music concert, Saturday 2^nd May at the National for Centre for Early Music.

Steve Crowther: Can you describe the work to us?

Philip Cashian: It’s in five sections; the first is a solo for alto flute, the second, waves of minimalistic-like textures, the next section is a low line that slowly rises, growing all the time, then a cello and piano duo and finally a dark coda built around the amazing sound of a low 5 octave marimba.

SC: Do you write at the piano, do you pre-plan? Can you describe the compositional process?

PC: I write mainly at the piano but, since Gary Carpenter told me about Wallander Note Performer (which is superb), increasingly also on the computer using playback. I pre-plan to the extent that I know the overall feel and character of a piece - like a snapshot- before starting it. I accumulate lots of sketches and fragments before actually starting to write. I hate scratching around for ideas once I’m writing a piece.

SC: Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a sound in mind?

PC: I’m writing a piano concerto for my friend Huw Watkins at the moment. If it was for another pianist the piece would be completely different. Of course once the piece is written any pianist could perform it but thinking about Huw’s playing whilst I’m writing it directly affects the choices I’m making. Yes, I always write with a sound in mind.

SC: How would you describe your individual ‘sound world’?

PC: Last year I had a review in Tempo magazine for the recent House of Night CD and there’s a paragraph which I think describes my music very well: Several Cashian hallmarks emerge in the course of this CD: bold melodic gestures for instruments in unison; a kind of 'broken machine' texture in which uneven rhythms lumber almost out of control; motor rhythm sections pointing up a relationship with minimalism; and contemplative passages, akin to Morton Feldman, in which musical objects are carefully placed in 'static fields'. Above all there is a brisk intelligence behind the music, unsentimental certainly, but never arid.

SC: What motivates you to compose?

PC: That’s very difficult to answer. I’ve accumulated lots of ideas that I want to hear and articulate in all sorts of different ways and contexts. Also, trying to correct the errors I can hear in previous pieces. I can’t not compose - which I can’t explain.

SC: Which living composers do you identify with or simply admire?

PC: Harrison Birtwistle

SC: If you could have a beer and a chat with any composer from the past, who would it be and why?

PC: Stravinsky, do I really need to explain why?

SC: Now for some desert island discery – please name eight pieces of music you could not be without, and then select just one.

PC: Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring, Birtwistle: Silbury Air, Beethoven: Symphony No. 7, Sibelius: Symphony No. 5, Schubert: Death and the Maiden Quartet, Bach: Goldberg Variations, Ligeti: Violin Concerto, Radiohead: Kid A (the whole album)

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

SC: …and a book?

PC: Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children

SC: …a film?

PC: Pulp Fiction

SC: … and a luxury item?

PC: an iPhone 

Late Music 2015 featured composer: Judith Weir

Judith Weir's interests in narrative, folklore and theatre have found expression in a broad range of musical invention. She is the composer and librettist of several widely performed operas whose diverse sources include Icelandic sagas, Chinese Yuan Dynasty drama and German Romanticism. Folk music from the British Isles and beyond has influenced her music for solo instruments, and she has had strong links with performers from non-classical traditions.

In July 2014 she was appointed to the 388-year old royal post of Master of the Queen’s Music, in succession to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

Judith Weir’s music will be programmed throughout the concert series, with a new piece being premiered by the Albany Trio on Saturday 6^th June.

Steve Crowther: Can you describe your music to us?

Judith Weir: I’d say the musical events in it are clear, but it’s not simple. I enjoy fast tempi and rhythmic subtlety. The character/world of the instrument or the voice is something I try to emphasise; I like virtuosic energy, the sense of the instrument or voice doing what it’s really built to do.

SC: Do you write at the piano, do you pre-plan? Can you describe the compositional process?

JW: Conceptual thinking (it can be very vague at first) is important – in the back of my mind I’m asking myself some questions about why I’m writing the piece, for what outcome. I start sketching – just scribbling really. Somehow this activity clears my mind, I start to concentrate and after a while I can see which material will be useful or important in the piece. After that I might start building up lengths of melody or chords to form a short section of the composition. When I get to this point I do need to use the piano a bit to check pitches. From here onwards I write many more versions of the material which have progressively more detail in them.

SC: Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a sound in mind? What motivates you to compose?

JW: Knowing the performer is my great motivation. That person’s sound, their approach and the brief they have given me (even if unintentionally) is my clue to creating the music. Music for me is a live activity, a social gathering and I feel my job as a composer is to facilitate that, as a colleague to both performers and listeners.

SC: Which living composers do you identify with or simply admire?

JW: I listen reasonably widely and often – I get sent and given a lot of music, I like to keep up with music by my friends and ex-students or people I’ve recently encountered – so it is a constantly changing diet, not based on any particular contemporary figures or movements/tendencies.

SC: If you could have a beer and a chat with any composer from the past, who would it be and why?

JW: I don’t get the impression that many of these people were friendly beer-drinking types. At present I’d appreciate talking to Bartok – ask him about the maths in his music, and his experiences as a folk-music collector.

SC: Now for some desert island discery – please name eight pieces of music you could not be without, and then select just one.

JW: Picking eight titles would cause me an endless crisis of comparison. Cutting to the chase, the ‘just one’ is the St Matthew Passion.

SC: …and a book?

JW: You would want a fairly long book, so perhaps Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec.

SC: …a film?

JW: Something singalong I think, so maybe Everyone Says I Love You, the Woody Allen musical.

SC: … and a luxury item?

JW: A well-stocked deli.