WITHERBUD

Witherbud, commissioned and performed by the LPO as part of their 2020 - 2021 LPO Young Composers’ Scheme, was composed during lockdown. Challenged to respond to concert’s moniker of Bunker Music… READ MORE

FOR ORCHESTRA (2021), premiered by JACK SHEEN and the LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

AN INTERVIEW WITH A “PUPPET” AND HIS “MAKER”

A CANTATA IN THROWN VOICES (2021 - 2022), FOR TWO MEZZO-SOPRANOS AND SINFONIETTA

LIBRETTIST: GARETH MATTEY

PREMIER PENDING (contact Alex at alextaymusic@gmail.com if you want to support the premier of this piece!)

An Interview with a “Puppet” and his “Maker” is a ventriloquism cantata/opera conceived by myself and Gareth Mattey, a fantastic writer, librettist, director and film-maker. The piece uses the illusive act of ventriloquism to rhetorically depict the power dynamics at play between two puppets locked in an abusive relationship and a sinister, unseen Interviewer, who is represented by the instrumental ensemble. One puppet is called “Maker” and the other… READ MORE

JAB

FOR SOLO PIANO (2019 - 2021), premiered by BEN SMITH

“…wildly inventive and riveting…” Laurence Osborn

“One of the best things I’ve heard in many years…” Alastair White

“…overflowing with beauty and poignancy” Dr Tonia Ko

“One of the most chaotic pieces I’ve ever heard.” Michelle Hromin

Jab is a simultaneous expression of turmoil and joy. It's my life between 2019 and 2021. In this time, I experienced frustration, anger, fear, rejection and loss. At the same time, there was laughter, exhilaration, discovery and rebirth. I constantly questioned what exactly I wanted to deliver: a joke or swear? A punch line or sucker punch? The six contrasting gestures - a cluster that peels away to… READ MORE

georgimorphosis

Georgimorphosis is an attempt to sonically mimic the effects of Escher's transformation prints. In pieces like Metamorphosis 1 (1937), Sky and Water (1938) and Verbum (Earth, Sky and Water) (1942), visual objects tessellate and seamlessly transform into others: fish into birds, birds into squares, people into houses. After composers like Adès, Kurtag and Finissy, who have notably used found objects 'quotations' in their own ways, I asked myself, would it be possible to use the methods of Reich and Donatoni to transform quotes by different composer Georges into each other? Why Georges? The piece started life as a… READ MORE

FOR SOLO CLARINET IN A (2019 - 2021), premiered by RAYMOND BRIEN

ghoulish airs

Ghoulish Airs, written for the London Symphony through the LSO Discovery Panufnik Scheme and supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, takes place in a hellish dimension of Oscar Wilde’s making. In his short story, The Canterville Ghost, an American family moves into an old haunted Tudor manor and comically fails to be haunted by an Elizabethan ghost. As the tale progresses, Virginia, the Otis family’s only daughter, bonds with the ghost and learns that he may only die if a pure maiden begs the angel of death for mercy upon the ghost’s soul. Out of kindness, Virginia agrees to help the ghost, and he leads her into a ghoulish void filled with evil spirits.

Aural illusions are used to sonically describe the fabric of this ghostly… READ MORE

FOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (2019 - 2021), written for the LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

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After Images

“If discoursing on a difficult problem were like carrying weights, when many horses can carry more sacks of grain than a single horse, I would agree that many discourses would do more than a single one; but discoursing is like coursing, not like carrying, and one Barbary courser can go faster than a hundred Frieslands” - Galileo

The idea of writing a piece that works with speed illusions was sparked by reading the above quote by Galileo in Calvino’s chapter on Quickness in his Six Memos for the Millenium. The piece gives the illusion of constant acceleration – which is impossible, especially since electronics are excluded from the work’s instrumental forces. I chose the title After Images because many cartoon characters are shown… READ MORE

FOR SINFONIETTA (2017 - 2018), written for the GUILDHALL NEW MUSIC SOCIETY, self-conducted

THE BLEAK WINTER

The Bleak Winter is a reference to the famous carol and poem. The piece draws inspiration from the first verse, where the Christina Rosetti describes the earth, winds, snow, and water, and imagines the four separate elements freezing and crystallising. The piece was selected by Judith Weir as the winning piece of the Britten Sinfonia’s 2015 Cambridge University Composers’ Workshop.

Conductor - Benedict Collins Rice, Flute - Simone Maurer, Clarinet - David Mears, French Horn - Hugh Sisley, Piano - Adam Hickox, Percussion - Lucy Landymore, Viola - Julian Fish, Cello - Leo Popplewell, Post-production - Max Liefkes

FOR CHAMBER ENSEMBLE (2015)

ARMS AND THE BOY

Arms and the Boy (1918), Wilfred Owen (second stanza cut)

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade,
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash;
And thinly drawn with drawn with famishing for flesh.

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls

Conductor - Eric Tuan, Sopranos - Rhiannon Randle, Zoë Silkstone, Altos - Helen Charlston, Helen Daniels, Tenors - Daniel J Lewis, Philip Barrett, Basses - Jack Butterworth, Leo Popplewell, Chamber Organ - Richard Gowers

FOR CHOIR AND CHAMBER ORGAN (2015)