Composer of the month: Nicola LeFanu

Steve Crowther: Can you tell us something of your background?

Nicola LeFanu:  I was born in Essex, but I am not a typical ‘Essex girl’ because my parents were both Irish. My father was a librarian (there are a lot of literary LeFanus) and my mother was the composer Elizabeth Maconchy.

SC: Can you describe String Quartet no4. to us? 

NL:  String Quartet no4 is pretty short – about nine minutes – but its economy makes it quite intense. I wrote it in June in the high Pyrenees and I really enjoyed composing it! It was inspired by a poem by the Russian Andrei Voznesensky – ‘with the open eyes of their dead fathers/towards other worlds they gaze ahead/children who..’

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

NL: I write at the piano and/or my desk; then I go to the computer and there is a revising and editing stage as I put the piece into Finale. Yes, I do pre-plan, though with luck the music takes over and shapes the plan anew.

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

NL: I always prefer to know who will be performing and write for them – character and sound; and also where – the audience and the acoustic for the premiere concert make a difference; though it is always the hope (and usually the case!) that the new work will be performed many times and in many places.

I have known the Bingham string quartet since the nineteen eighties, when they recorded four of the Maconchy quartets for CD.

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

NL: I usually say ‘lyrical and dramatic’, but I don’t know if that is helpful…

SC: What motivates you to compose?

NL: I always want to… it is what I like doing best, even though it can be maddening, elusive..and always hard work. But always worth it.

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

NL: I probably have most in common with the New Zealand composer Gillian Whitehead; not least, we share an addiction to composing opera. But as to British living composers, I still admire Birtwistle very much and there are a number of younger composers whose music I like, and try and keep up with.

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

NL: Holst, because my father said talking to Holst made you feel more alive.

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

NL: Living composers is too difficult to choose, though that’s what I listen to most..

For composers from the past, the list might change a bit day to day, but right now, it is:

Bach – Goldberg Variations; Mozart – The Marriage of Figaro; Beethoven - Csharp minor string quartet op131; Schubert – Quintet in C for strings; Schumann  - Dichterliebe (or Liederkreis!); Janacek – Katya Kabanova; Stravinsky – Petrushka; Maconchy – The Land , suite for orchestra.

Stravinsky – Petrushka is the one.

SC: …and a book?

NL: Thackeray, Vanity Fair

SC: …a film?

NL: a Buster Keaton  - could be ‘The General’ but I do love ‘Neighbours’.

SC: … and a luxury item?

NL: Black chocolates

Composer of the Month: Christopher Fox

Steve Crowther: Can you tell us something of your background?

Christopher Fox: I was born in York, just off Holgate Hill, but the time I wrote these songs I was living in Berlin.

SC: Can you describe A-N-N-A Blossom Time to us?

CF: It’s a set of nine songs to poems by the German artist Kurt Schwitters. I translated the poems into English, sometimes quite freely.

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

CF: With these songs I remember choosing the poems I liked the most, favouring the ones which seemed to tell stories or were love songs. I had worked out some years earlier, from a long study of Schubert’s songs, that the best way to write songs was to start with the accompaniment – that’s what gives each song its character.

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

CF: Always, and especially with singers. I wrote A-N-N-A Blossom Time for Amanda Crawley whose voice I had first heard in 1974. By the time I wrote these songs we had been married for nearly ten years, so I knew her voice very well. The piano part was written around my own rather less developed technique.

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

CF: I don’t think I can because I’ve never tried to cultivate one.

SC: What motivates you to compose?

CF: I want to change the world, just a bit.

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

CF: Many – but of younger composers I really admire Cassandra Miller, Egidija Medeksaite, Linda Buckley, Georgia Rodgers, Juliana Hodkinson.

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

CF: Stravinsky. My musical hero.

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

CF: Cage, String Quartet in Four Parts; The Slits, ‘In the beginning was rhythm’; Joni Mitchell, ‘A case of you’; Handel, Semele; Tallis, Lamentations; Stravinsky, Apollo; Mozart, Serenade in B flat for thirteen instruments; Scelsi, Kya. I’d pick the Handel because it’s the one I can remember least well.

SC: …and a book?
CF: Emma.

SC: …a film?
CF: Himmel über Berlin

SC: … and a luxury item?
CF: A cricket ball.

Composer of the month: Philip Cashian

Steve Crowther: Can you tell us something of your background?

Philip Cashian: Born Manchester, 17/01/1963 but have lived in London since 1984.

SC: Can you describe Mechanik to us?

PC: It’s very brief and is inspired by Eduardo Paolozzi’s sculpture Mechanik’s Bench, rhythmic, repetitive, mechanical.

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

PC: I always start at the piano. Eventually I’ll also use the computer. I used to plan pieces but not anymore; I start at the beginning and through compose now.

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

PC: It really helps and most of the time I’m commissioned by people I’ve worked with before or who I’ve heard perform which is always a starting point when writing. Not vital though.

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

PC: That’s the listener’s job. We all hear things differently depending on what music we already know and context. It’s dangerous for a composer to describe their own music as it might suggest to the listener how to listen to it or what to listen out for which isn’t a good.

SC: What motivates you to compose?

PC: Excitement.

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

PC: Harrison Birtwistle, Hans Abrahamsen, Andrew Norman, Radiohead, Oliver Knussen, Tom Waits, Pascal Dusapin.

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

PC: Stravinsky, obviously

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

PC: Goldberg Variations, Sibelius Symphony 5, Beethoven Symphony 7, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Silbury Air, Gruppen, Broadway the Hardway (album), Schubert ‘Death and the Maiden’ quartet.

And one would be the Goldberg Variations.

SC: …and a book?

PC:  East of Eden

SC: …a film?

PC:  Seven Psycopaths

SC: … and a luxury item?

PC: iPhone 7

Composer of the Month: Chris Gander

Steve Crowther: Can you tell us something of your background?

Chris Gander: I have lived in India and Iran where I studied the music of these cultures. I learned to play tabla and Dombak. I also studied Yoga and Indian philosophy. On returning I studied combining Indian music with Western compositional techniques, with the Indian Composer John Mayer. Also I studied western music at the University of Sussex and North Indian Music at SOAS The University of London.

SC: Can you describe Son et Lumiere  to us?

CG: Son et Lumiere in many ways follows on from this as it presents musically and visually how we and the environment that surrounds us is united through, sound light emotions ,the seasons times of day the chakras etc. Often using the parameters above to describe this. The French title also tries to evoke the universality of the work, unity in a world and country that can seems divided. At the end of the day we cannot escape the fact that the universe is in balance and that we are part of that balance.

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

CG: I assimilate all the practical elements of the work. Length, instrumentation, where it is to be performed. Who is playing it. This swirls around in my brain (mind) for a while. Then I start at the beginning  and finish at the end. There are of course some edits and adjustments. I never write sketches. The piece just forms in my head and I write it down. I don’t write at the piano but I do use a computer.

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

CG: I can’t imagine writing not knowing the performers. I am lucky I have always written for people I know.

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

CG: Well yes, as described above, it has always been a meeting point of different cultures, this I take great care to make as convincing as possible. Hence the reason for emerging myself in the cultures that meet (including our own).

SC: What motivates you to compose?

CG: Multiculturalism.

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

CG: John Mayer, has always been my great inspiration, it was an honour to study with him. Also not the sound world but the commitment of Michael Finnissy. I was also greatly influenced by the sitar player Dharambir Singh, who I also studied with.

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

CG: Who wouldn’t want a chat with Bach, probably the beer would be with Beethoven.

Bach because he said it all, we just follow in his light. Beethoven because we do need Ode to Joy right now.

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

CG: Imagine - John Lennon, My Sweet Lord - George Harrison, Like a Rolling Stone  -Bob Dylan, G’imme Shelter - The Rolling Stones. Bach -  Chaconne, Beethoven - Late String Quartets, Sibelius - Violin Concerto, John Adams - Violin Concerto.

My Sweet Lord - George Harrison.

SC: …and a book?

CG: The Ragas of North India by Walter Kaufman

SC: …a film?

CG: Amelie

SC: … and a luxury item?

CG: Bottle of Bourdeaux (French Red)

Composer of the month: Joe Cutler

Steve Crowther: Can you tell us something of your background?

Joe Cutler: I grew up in Neasden (London Borough of Brent) in a family that was interested in music but not professionally (although I have a cousin who is an avant-rock drummer). I grew up playing a wide range of music from playing in orchestras to funk bands and went to Huddersfield Polytechnic really because I wanted to compose. That’s really where it all began. From there I did a post-grad in Durham and then spent three years in Warsaw studying at the Chopin Academy of Music on a Polish Government Scholarship. Since then I’ve lived in London and Birmingham (and in between) and also work a lot in Holland.

SC: Can you describe Gaia to us?

JC: It’s a very earthy piece in which I try to imagine an archaic, imaginary folk-music. There are a lot of open strings and double-stops, and the structure is rather like a big arch.

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

JC: I tend to have two procedures going on at once. On one hand, I try to conceptualise the piece and get a sense of the structure, intentions, and what I’m trying to communicate (this can take some time....). But then there’s also quite a chaotic, improvisatory side to writing a piece where I play around on the piano, or violin, or with visual material, trying to generate ideas without really knowing where I’m going. Gradually, these two procedures begin to coalesce. 

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

JC: Over the years, I have tended to work with a number of different groups or performers on a regular basis so I then get to really know their sound and personality. I do like this way of working, although it’s exciting too to work with someone new too. I like to be able to imagine the way a piece will “feel” and sound and that is tied quite closely to who will be performing. 

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

JC: I think it changes from piece to piece, but I’m not looking for clean, glistening soundworlds. I am much more interested in something more raw than that. Imperfection is much more interesting than perfection.

SC: What motivates you to compose?

JC: Having fun/trying to communicate something/making things

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

JC: Louis Andriessen and the second generation Dutch post-minimalists have been important for me (Martijn Padding, Cornelis de Bondt, Yannis Kyriakides). Frederic Rzewski too. And my colleagues in Birmingham like Michael Wolters, Howard Skempton, Errollyn Wallen, Ed Bennett, Andrew Hamilton, Sean Clancy and Richard Ayres.

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

JC: Well Mozart I think would be fun, but I’d love to go for a Chinese with Morton Feldman, and I almost met John Cage in Huddersfield but was too shy to talk to him, so I’d like to put that right.

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

JC:

Richard Ayres - In the Alps

Morton Feldman - Coptic Light

Howard Skempton - The Moon is Flashing

Finn Peters - Butterflies

Joni Mitchell - Don’t interrupt the sorrow

Couperin - Les barricades mysterieuses

Paul Brady - Arthur McBride

The Divine Comedy - Our Mutual Friend

If I could select just one, it would be the Couperin, as that was the piece playing whilst our son, Arthur, was being born last year.

  

SC: …and a book?

JC:  One Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell

SC: …a film?

JC: Can it be TV? The six series of Breaking Bad

SC: … and a luxury item?

JC: I like playing table tennis so a table and a table tennis robot (they do exist) which hits balls at you (you can control the type of spin on the ball too).