Shiva Feshareki reflects on Valentine’s Rhapsody

On Saturday 5 November the London Sinfonietta premiered a selection of chamber works by our Writing the Future composers.  After the event  Shiva Feshareki sent us this blog post about her thoughts on both the concert day and afterwards. Thank you Shiva!

The concert on Saturday 5 November was one of those strange, surreal experiences.  In my opinion, I had the country’s finest instrumentalists on stage ready to perform my piece Valentine’s Rhapsody.  So I was at ease… in that sense. The issue, I must confess, was the feeling of self-doubt.  You see, I had written an extremely personal and difficult piece emotionally, and it is dedicated to someone I love dearly – Valentine Davies – and who has (without exaggeration) saved my life.  I wanted this piece to show a transition, mirroring my life. This is what the piece is about and how Valentine’s impact changed who I am, and for the better.   My doubt was that, on a personal level, this is the most significant piece I have written.  Will it ever have that massive, heart-wrenching impact it had on me whilst thinking and composing it, but in performance? …to others?

I think the conclusion is that one shouldn’t over-think these things (something I have to remind myself every second of everyday).

A) I wrote a piece.
B) I quite literally translated an almost brutal auto-biography.
C) I was honest.
D) The performers respected that honesty.
E) It all represents this eventually positive journey into a short, purposefully understated piece.
F) It was performed better than I could imagine, and it had the opportunity to be heard.

First Conclusion: A+B+C+D+E+F = What more could I want?

Second conclusion: once a piece is written – it is permanent – it does not wither.  So the person the piece was written for will have a permanent reminder of how she helped me, and especially, helped me help myself.  And as for ‘Writing the Future’, quite literally I hope the piece lives on in the future (or at least, I hope that the score of it that I threw into the River Thames off the Embankment Bridge, drifts like a message in a bottle… at least in my thoughts and ponderings).

Thank you to the London Sinfonietta’s Writing the Future for supporting and promoting new music with the same relentless, unique passion as it takes for me to write the music.  This is a relationship that I will cherish, and will inspire me further, both musically and personally.

Click here to  listen to Valentine’s Rhapsody and other Writing the Future works premiered on Saturday 5 November.

 

Writing the Future: The Final Countdown

Next week sees our Writing the Future composers meet with London Sinfonietta Principal Players in their final workshop as part of the scheme.  Michael Duffy, who has been following the composers’ progress throughout the scheme, gives us a taste of what’s to come…

I last saw the Writing the Future composers in early August with, what were then, preliminary sketches and drafts of what are shaping up to be four fantastic quintets to be performed by some of the London Sinfonietta’s forces as part of our Pavilions: New Music Show 2 on 5 November.  Shiva Feshareki, Edmund Finnis, Tim Hodgkinson and Isambard Khroustaliov were asked to continue on the programme following the performance of their solo works at our Pavilions concert in May this year, where they were amazingly well received. Now, the composers are refining new ensemble works for flute, clarinet, horn, violin and cello (with a few familial deviations here and there!).

Tim Hodgkinson works with London Sinfonietta principal Michael Thompson

Next week they’ll be meeting the players again to workshop near-complete versions of these works. As always with these four composers I’m excited to hear how their work has developed and to listen in on the insight the players receive about what’s going on ‘behind the notes’. It’s also great to hear the feedback on the music from the players as well!

I’ll be posting again after we’ve had the workshops to give a further update on these new pieces, but in the meantime, check out some of the Music Streams on the London Sinfonietta website for solo works from Tim, Edmund and Shiva. And don’t forget to book for the world premieres of these works at Pavilions: New Music Show 2 on Saturday 5 November at the Southbank Centre!

Michael Duffy

Assistant Producer, Creative Projects

Writing the Future: First Pieces (part 3)

Tim Hodgkinson is another of the six composers selected to take part in the London Sinfonietta’s new Writing the Future scheme, and has been working with the ensemble’s Principal horn Michael Thompson since the scheme’s launch in February.

The result of this collaboration is a Sinfonietta Short, as yet untitled, which will be premiered at a free pre-concert performance as part of Pavilions, the London Sinfonietta’s celebration of new British music on Sunday 29 May.

Tim tells us more about his new piece…

Tim Hodgkinson (L) and Michael Thompson meet at the Writing the Future launch, Feb 2011. Image (c) Briony Campbell

I am at the stage where there is a great deal of impetus coming from what already exists but there are still major decisions being made that require me to step back and think or not think about what I am doing.

I’m not sure about the flavour: ripe fruits with dark undertones of tobacco perhaps.

Just had (Monday) an excellent session with Michael in which we went through the first part working on details of playing and notation. This all went fine. I thought he might tell me the second part was unplayable – it has a lot of little notes in it – but he didn’t. It simply sounds more snakey than I was expecting, which is fine, as the material all derives from a complex wave form. Then we looked at sound ideas for the third part and he suggested using a microphone for the performance so we can use varied breath sounds and they won’t disappear in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

The next step for me is to firm up the third part whilst keeping hold of how it reflects on what goes before it, as well as how it reflects on a possible fourth part. I think what really holds the piece together is the silences and I have to keep weighing these up. They are hard to fix because they don’t feel the same length if you count them, and the listener won’t be counting them.

Tim Hodgkinson

Book your tickets to hear the premiere of Tim’s new Sinfonietta Short at Pavilions at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on Sunday 29 May, 2011.

Click here to find out more about how the London Sinfonietta is creating new music with some of the finest emerging composers on Writing the Future.

Pavilions is generously supported by Arts Council England, the Holst Foundation, PRS for Music Foundation and the RVW Trust.

Writing the Future is generously supported by The Boltini Trust, The John S Cohen Foundation, Anthony Mackintosh and Michael & Patricia McLaren-Turner.

Writing the Future: First Pieces (part 2)

Shiva Feshareki is another of the six composers selected to take part in the London Sinfonietta’s new Writing the Future scheme, and has been working with the ensemble’s Principal clarinet Mark van de Wiel since the scheme’s launch in February.

The result of this collaboration is a Sinfonietta Short, titled departing in peace, arriving with love which will be premiered at an exclusive London Sinfonietta’s Pioneers’ event on Wednesday 13 April 2011.

Keep your eyes on the London Sinfoniettta website for news about the first public performance.

Composer Shiva Feshareki (r) at the launch of Writing the Future, February 2011. Photo © Briony Campbell

Shiva tells us more about her piece…

Mark and I already knew each other, when we met on stage of the Royal Festival Hall in a Q&A session last year. Not exactly the most common place to meet, but a lot started even then. In regards to this collaboration, I think he had already understood my way of thinking. I like picking up things that come my way very spontaneously, which then register in my head as being significant, or having had an impact on me. So during the time we have spent with each other so far, we have been focussing on emotions and meanings, and what’s significant for both of us, both in music and in our everyday lives. Now, this will remain between just the two of us, however, for example, I asked him about what makes him happy, what makes him smile, why he likes certain passages of music (which he played a lot of for me: such a luxury), why certain things are scary for him or tedious etc (rather than what sound does it produce if you shove a pen knife in the clarinet or what extended technique can we bastardise this time(!)). In other words, for Mark and me, it’s about the personal, not the technical (or techniques). And I really did find some really beautiful moments emerged between us, so far, in the collaboration. This doesn’t mean that the piece I am writing for him will be so tailored for him that other clarinettists can’t play it; it just means that we have found a soul for the piece, and it’s something that I am now translating into the music (it never had any verbal identity anyway).

The next time we meet, Mark will receive the complete piece. He already knew that that’s what I do: something just clicks in my head after much internal thought, and then I write ’the whole’, with no disruption.

Mark is a fantastic person. Not only does he produce one of the best sounds I have ever heard, but his attitude and commitment to music have no comparison. We both trust each other wholeheartedly, and that is the definition of a collaboration.’

Shiva will not be using electronics in this piece.

Book your tickets to hear more of the Writing the Future pieces at our Pavilions pre-concert performance on Sunday 29 May 2011.

Click here to find out more about how the London Sinfonietta is creating new music with some of the finest emerging composers on Writing the Future.

Writing the Future: First Pieces

Edmund Finnis is one of the six composers selected to take part in the London Sinfonietta’s new Writing the Future scheme, and has been working with the ensemble’s Principal viola Paul Silverthorne since the scheme’s launch in February.

The result of this collaboration is a Sinfonietta Short, titled Veneer, which will be premiered on Tuesday 5 April 2011 at the ensemble’s Chopped and Screwed – itself a collaboration between the London Sinfonietta and rising stars of the experimental pop scene Micachu and the Shapes.

Edmund tells us more about his piece…

Edmund Finnis begins his collaboration with LS Principal Paul Silverthorne at the Writing the Future Introduction Weekend, Feb 2011. Photo © Briony Campbell

I have been working on my piece for solo viola while on residency at the Banff Centre in Canada. For the piece, the viola’s lowest string is tuned down a tone to a Bb. I am interested in the way that this seemingly small adjustment to the instrument alters the nature of its resonance. In particular, when played loud, partials from the low string now set up sympathetic vibrations in the D string. The work makes use of the scordatura tuning by exploiting its concomitant range of natural harmonics. These harmonics are played loud and stridently, in a way that lets them continue to resonate beyond the moment the bow leaves the strings. To accentuate the kind of singing quality that I am after, I am looking at the possibility of using subtle, unobtrusive amplification along with a small amount of artificial reverb. I am very keen not to alienate the sound of the natural viola by connecting it to an amplification circuit, and only want to use reverb to emulate the kind of sound one might hear if the piece were played in a large reverberant space such as a chapel.

My work on this piece will doubtless inform aspects of my next large composition, to be scored for 2 viola d’amores and 14 modern strings.

Edmund Finnis

Book your tickets to hear the premiere of Veneer at Micachu and the Shapes with the London Sinfonietta: Chopped and Screwed at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on Tuesday 5 April, 2011.

Click here to find out more about how the London Sinfonietta is creating new music with some of the finest emerging composers on Writing the Future.

Micachu and the Shapes with the London Sinfonietta: Chopped and Screwed is presented by Southbank Centre in association with the London Sinfonietta as part of Ether.

Writing the Future is generously supported by The Boltini Trust, The John S Cohen Foundation, Anthony Mackintosh and Michael & Patricia McLaren-Turner.