At the start of my career I got a really bad review in the national press. I’d put everything into a cross-genre project for pop singer and amplified string quartet. I thought it was original, daring and certainly highly-personal. But the reviewer in the Daily Telegraph was vitriolic. They went as far as saying that everyone involved had been ‘duped’. It was devastating, and it damaged something inside for a long time. An attack like this can go two ways for the person in the firing line, and I wasn’t going to let this finish me off. I have fed off this hostility ever since, and used it as creative fuel, attempting to prove them wrong.
What it seemed they didn’t like was my attempt to blend musical genres and to break down aesthetic boundaries. I was daring to be a composer who was (in that piece at least), exploring new versions of the pop song with contemporary harmonies, minimalism and long forms.
That was 1995, and a lot has changed since then. Hybrids of all kinds are not only fashionable, but in many ways, expected. I have tried to steer my own course, independent of these trends and just get on with things. Reviews of my work more recently have noted that my music is ‘utterly unclassifiable’ (London Jazz Blog) and that I am a ‘restlesss spirit’ (Guardian). I feel that I may be starting to get my point across!
This month I have three very different projects coming to fruition. Collectively they starkly highlight my genre-exploding philosophy and I make no apologies for their diversity.
On 6th October my piece It speaks Without Answer for choir and harp is premiered in London by Pagasus Choir and harpist Gloria Rappo. The work is tuneful and accessible, falling into a fairly traditional concert framework.
A week before on 1st October I release an EP on my own label (Squeaky Kate). Songs of Coiled Light collaboratively mashes up music for bass clarinet with improvised sections and a lashings of live electronics. My partners in crime are bass clarinettist Gareth Davies and sound artist Rutger Zuydervelt. I guess nothing could be further apart than these two pieces.
Somewhere in the middle is a sound installation that has just opened on the Cutty Sark in Greenwich. It is the third corner of the triangle; ambient soundtrack music written collaboratively with violist Nic Pendlebury from the Smith Quartet. To add further crossing-over of musical aesthetics this also includes a pop song created in collaboration with the lead singer of indie band Goat Girl Lottie P.
Unless the reviewer from the 1995 has matured, I’m not sure they’d be very impressed.
But I’m pleased with the output of all three projects and they reflect where I am as a composer. I don’t see dividing lines and musical hierarchies. I also just enjoy the variety of challenges that different ways of working provoke.
If you would like to get deeper insights into my work, (including exclusive background to my forthcoming album The Year Round) then you can find out how to become one of my patrons here:
Information about the premiere of It Speaks Without Answer for choir and harp is available here
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/pegasus-chamber-choir/t-qjpmdkv
The EP Songs of Coiled Light is available here:
https://squeakykate.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-coiled-light
More information about the Cutty Sark Sound Installation is available here:
https://www.rmg.co.uk/cutty-sark/attractions/cutty-sark-audio-guides/soundscape
… and the EP Ebb and Flow with Lottie P from Goat Girl available here:
https://sonic-collaborations.bandcamp.com/album/ebb-and-flow
