Hello and welcome to Symposium Day three of the diversity and British string
quartettes this session is called the diasporic Quartet's Identity Anaesthetics.
And we're delighted to have our keynote speaker, Dr. Das Oliver, with us today, as did his DFL, Worcester College, Oxford.
And prior to that, I studied at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the Royal Academy of Music with Steve Martin.
And his work and research includes focus on black and minority ethnicity,
representation and Western classical music on issues of cultural appropriation and identity and music.
He was recently commissioned to make a documentary,
a documentary series by Sound of Music for the British music collection titled Identity and the Anxiety of Influence.
And you can find that on YouTube as a composer has created solo work or orchestral work, a ballet called Black Orpheus.
And recent work includes Malik Maluka murder for Hindustani vocalist and ensemble performed by ensemble ISIS.
He's also had work commissioned and performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Pegasus Opera Company,
and his work has been heard at the Southbank Centre and at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival that has also
recently been LSH over composer plus composer residence and is currently a tutor at Maudlin College Oxford in the Press.
His work has been described as utterly compelling and with a rhythmic fluency.
Few composers master, so I'm delighted to welcome you to this talk today titled The Diasporic Quartet's Identity and Aesthetics.
And we very much welcome questions which you can type in the charts, the live chat on YouTube as we go, and we'll answer them at the end of the talk.
Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you very much, Nina.
Hello, everyone, and welcome. Nice to see you.
Many thanks to Dr Joanna,
belligerent and Torch for inviting me and also to composer Dr Nina Whiteman for convening and for that very generous introduction.
The title of this particular talk, I spoke Quartet's identity and aesthetics.
So Jazz, how do you compose is a question that I am frankly sick and tired of within that sort
of typical interaction with which I'm sure many composers here will be familiar.
There is, I think, a kind of conflation between process and methods.
You know, someone asks what you're sort of presumptively singular processes,
and the composer responds usually by sort of talking in very generalised terms about their methods.
And, you know, once they sort of begin to see the question as eyes kind of glaze over,
will often deviate to weave a kind of fanciful narrative about divine inspiration.
The process, as you know, refers to the sort of individual steps from motivation's through to sort of initial concepts through to completion.
And whilst composing tends to involve for me anyway, sort of very kind of similar emotional trajectory, which usually goes something like this.
Conversely, the the actual sort of composing process is kind of different each time.
And so my method is really kind of a list of, you know,
at this point little more than sort of assumptions really about how that sort of process might typically unfold.
And so the equally sort of often asked question, you know, what is your inspiration, ironically, is a much more useful question, I think,
for the questioner to ask the composer if it's qualified with for this piece or recently or perhaps an even more sort of pertinent question might be,
well, you know, what are you writing about right now? And so instead, I thought I would sort of adopt a slightly kind of riskier strategy.
But I think more honest approach by guiding you through at least my kind of process leading up to one of the movements of the disparate quartettes,
which is a yet to be premiered work commissioned by the LSO is part of my job as a composer,
plus residency and in particular, sort of like what motivated me to actually want to write the piece,
what the sort of unique challenges have been in writing it, because the sort of trajectory for composing this piece has been like markedly longer
journey for me and sort of transformative journey in a way than in some of my other pieces,
sort of especially given its kind of comparative length, which is only around sort of 25 to 30 minute arc.
And so sort of given in the sort of extended lead in time to sort of actually writing it, you know, how did I and why did I begin to to do that?
And now, you know, of course, when sort of pushed to reflect on, you know, what have you been writing about recently?
I think looking at some of my more recent compositions, you know,
I do see obvious parallels and I think which can probably be characterised as pieces which have some kind of social or sort of political dimension,
even though I don't really consider myself to be a political composer.
And that term, I think, is always sort of implied for me at least, a kind of element of opportunism,
opportunism or a sort of shrewdness for networking or, I don't know, jumping on the bandwagon and kind of like capitalising on a sort of hot topic.
Having said that, I think a number of my recent works have been sort of preoccupied with questioning the role of the composer,
but really questioning me as a composer in society and sort of thinking about kind of my usefulness in that way.
And I think this is certainly sort of a recent shift in my thinking in that the idea of
sort of social consciousness in music was a subject that I sort of actively avoided.
And I think despite being sort of challenged on this quite vociferously as a student by my former teacher and mentor, Steve Martland,
for me composing and sort of always been about kind of, I don't know,
expressing the ineffable sort of often had a kind of pseudo spiritual or a supposed mystical dimension to it.
And it wasn't really until I started to explore Greek mythology that I began to see
the possibility that those two aspects could kind of coexist in a Greek tragedy,
which, you know, can often be sort of quite political or have a kind of moral ethical dilemma grounded in earthly concerns.
I mean, I'm thinking about sort of Sophocles is antigoni, for instance,
but then sort of also as well, how a kind of spiritual sort of mystical dimension.
So. And my sort of first kind of entry into, I suppose that world was a kind of very quirky sort of cinematic ballet entitled Black Orpheus,
which was inspired by the 1959 Brazilian French film of the same name,
and by director Marcel Camu, which is a kind of sort of interpretation of sort of Orpheus and particularly of its Orpheus,
but also at the same time kind of immersed in black and Brazilian culture.
And then to the setting of five correlates for in Oxford Playhouse production of Euripides Macci in ancient Greek,
which was sort of attempting to explore themes of gender expression, which was of particular interest to the director and some members of the cast.
Not sure how successful it was. But, you know, certainly there was some certainly connexion or trajectory in my mind.
And then as an offshoot of that, an electronic piece called Dionysian Rivers Flow Through Me.
And in a way, these sort of became a kind of gateway pieces until I sort of no longer felt that I
needed the kind of mythological element and that kind of sort of fell away naturally.
And so upon sort of deeper reflection, that sort of social usefulness aspect, I think has become increasingly important to me.
And, you know, this might sound incredibly naive or even a bit narcissistic or just plain sort of cheesy,
but I think that my aspirations are that at least at the moment,
that the pieces that I write in some way try to kind of like be the change I want to see.
And yeah, as I say, it sounds really cheesy.
And so for me, I think it's as much about sort of speaking to these issues as it is addressing some kind of sort of philosophical,
not usually accompanied by a kind of like composition or not that I need to untie.
So my piece, Malik Emoter, written in 2013 at the Chamber Ensemble and vocalist of the Hindustani tradition,
is a cross-cultural piece which was designed to really act as a kind of sonic
bridge intended to be performed in a concert of traditional Hindustani repertoire.
On one hand, and a 20th century sort of Orientalists work, such as the Kathakali poems on Do by the 20th century French composer Marcus Delarge,
and sort of like works of that ilk that are engaged in sort of some form of subject to procreation.
So, you know, something inspired more by the sort of the idea of of India or idea of the other and Indian music
rather than necessarily anything kind of like intrinsic to sort of Indian traditional music itself.
And so just for variety, I will just give you a quick blast of that.
Andrew. So sort of like, you know, kind of conceptual dilemma was, well, like how do I, you know,
mitigate these sort of ethical issues of cultural appropriation and square that with a sort of authentic creative desire towards transcultural ism,
you know, or sort of borrowing from non Western cultural forms or,
you know, simply music that I don't have an immediate cultural connexion to or that isn't sort of a part of my heritage,
you know, which is something I see sort of increasingly in many of my compositions, students certainly over the last few years.
But to sort of do it in a way that doesn't kind of constitute a sort of cultural gentrification,
but also kind of how we can sort of ameliorate some of the ethical issues of some of those sort of problematic works,
you know, against it sort of source inspiration.
You know, is there something that we can learn by having all of those pieces kind of play out together?
And also, where can we sort of contemporary composers sort of navigate and and fit within that?
So working with Hindustani performer Dr. Shooty Johari, learning from her something of a stylistic language,
a praksis her traditions before sort of embarking on the piece, I think was such an important part of that process.
And through working with her,
I kind of became aware of just how easy it is for Western composers who might be drawn to using non Western or traditional
instruments to sort of overlook or sort of missed the most important and valuable aspect of that interaction,
you know, especially if they're just sort of using, you know, non Western instruments within a classical ensemble,
like a string quartette, whereas actually thinking about the sort of Indian concept of rhythm, of form, of melody in that way.
I think cross-cultural work is sort of really interesting.
You know, classical musicians having to think in a different way and embrace that sort of spontaneity of traditional musicians who are not reading.
And then in the same way, traditional musicians are having to sort of adjust to that very kind of structured
way of working in terms of form and sort of still finding their way within that.
And then it becomes more about the sort of subtleties internal to the music.
And a piece that is upcoming, Rushed,
which is a song composed for the purposes of the company's community choir in
celebration of Windrush day 2021 and for a strong performance on the 2nd of June.
And that was a project whereby both sort of musical and lyrical content came directly out of conversations with the community choir,
which consisted of a number of sort of Windrush descendents and also members of the Windrush generation.
And I think that sort of going into that piece, I was mindful of the recent and as it turns out,
sort of ongoing controversy surrounding statues, you know,
the back foot in London, the Coulston in Bristol and, you know, the the infamous Cecil Rhodes in Oxford,
and how that controversy was really centred around, in my view,
a desire to see nuance in our sort of representation and acknowledgement of historical
events and how through a particular brand of nationalism and rigid patriotism,
the UK has had an unfortunate tendency to be sort of quite selective in its acknowledgement of history and and also how often sort of idolatry can
represent a kind of an airbrushing out or can stand for a sort of total erasure of some of the more problematic aspects of British colonial past.
And I think that what was so interesting about my conversations with the choir about how our history and the history of Windrush can be best served,
I think the thing that came up almost immediately from them was the desire to see nuance in that representation.
You know, people came to the UK for, you know, lots of different reasons.
Their sort of experiences varied wildly in different parts of the country, you know, and all of them sort of wanted that story to be told.
And I think that what was revealed by that conversation is the the sort of dichotomy that lies at the heart of the Windrush experience,
you know, between on the one hand,
that desire to see that story told through a lens of hopefulness and triumph and resilience and achievement, but also as well,
a desire to kind of acknowledge and recognise the struggles of that generation caused by or sort of grounded in racism.
And so there's a kind of conceptual dilemma, you know, by focussing exclusively on the former,
there's a risk of romanticising that story in a way that doesn't do justice to their achievements.
And by focussing on.
Only on the latter, there is a risk of sort of presenting that history and ourselves always and only within the framework of racism.
And so the challenge musically, I mean, aside from sort of accommodating the request of the commission,
is that some sort of aspects of Afro Caribbean stylistic perfumes were included in the piece that is essentially classical,
along with the sort of various technical challenges of writing a piece which can be performed in a number
of different contexts for different instrumental setups for how amateur acquired children's voices.
And, you know, how do I go about sort of representing that very layered story lyrically within a four minute song?
And also like, how do I tell that story in a way that the choir themselves can see themselves in that music?
You know, how do I do all of that also within three weeks so that the title Rush had kind of a cinematic quality as well.
And I think I landed on the idea of the image of that ship, the HMS Empire Windrush, sailing to the UK in 1948.
You know, the first sort of big wave of Caribbean immigration that that ship sailing with intention against choppy waters,
became a sort of very powerful metaphor,
really, for the whole thing, because it's sort of conceptually encapsulated and sort of crystallised all of those aspects, namely resilience and.
An upcoming sort of development project entitled Trailblazers,
which is in collaboration with the brilliant creative producer, historian and faith filmmaker Pamela Roberts,
who is the founder of Black Oxford and has been she's been instrumental in kind of raising awareness about several of Oxford's first Christian Cole,
who is the UK's first African barrister, to practise English in English courts and in the late 19th century.
And the American writer and philosopher Alan Bolac,
who was the first American African-American Rhodes Scholar and also one of the founding fathers of the Harlem Renaissance,
which is a movement that included a host of authors and artists and philosophers and,
you know, early jazz musicians, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters, as well as a host of classical composers William Grant,
still William L. Dawson and Florence Price and also the lady in the centre, and Cafarella Moore.
He was the first Nigerian woman to achieve a degree from Oxford.
And he went on to become a teacher and educator and activist and author and.
And for years now,
Pamela Roberts has been sort of raising awareness about sort of black history in Oxford through a series of created project stage works film,
through her extensive writing a book, Black Oxford The Untold Stories of Oxford University, Black Scholars.
And in 2007, a plaque was unveiled in Rogich Lane to celebrate Christian Cole.
And she suggested the idea is sort of part of her work with Black Oxford and worked alongside the domestic bursar,
Angela Ounsworth and archivist Dr Robyn Goldsmith to sort of bring it about.
And so in terms of the sort of philosophical not,
I think that we saw some sort of points of synergy between the lack of recognition of historical black scholars within an institution
like Oxford and also the lack of recognition of historical black composers within the sort of institutions of classical music.
And I suppose as well,
sort of maybe relating to kind of particular concerns that I have long had about the sort of discourse surrounding music education and
access and widening participation and stylistic representation and the sort of conflation that sometimes occurs within those conversations.
You know, it's not that, you know, black composers didn't participate in classical music, which extended deep into the 19th century.
It's just that we don't always sort of bring them into the conversation when we talk about what classical music is and,
you know, setting aside some of the sort of tremendous barriers of what has long been a kind of closed industry,
along with a very unfortunate culture of nepotism,
the sort of success of composers I think has long hinged on their ability to be able to finance publishing,
which was really the only way that they would have sort of an outside chance of being kind of included in the repertoire.
So, you know, if we're thinking about 19th century and turn of the 20th century,
we aren't necessarily considering all of the kind of community practises of classical music as well.
And this is also the case in other parts of the world.
And, you know, with the sort of impact of a colonial education system and sort of what occurred sort of subsequent to that sort of ethical wrong.
And I think the sort of the latter for some time has been a little bit of a sticking point for black
artists engaging in classical music and sort of particularly those involved in areas of music
education and a concern that the sort of legacy and access isn't of sort of black participation in
classical music isn't erased or squeezed out in our kind of rush to decolonise music education.
And so I think in our sort of conversations, which, you know, of course, doesn't apply to music, hence my collaboration with Pamela Roberts,
there seems to be, in my view, a lot of cross talk and assumptions about decolonising that really sort of need to be unpacked.
And, you know, other composers, such as the composer, pianist Paul Gladstein Reed, I mean,
we're sort of discussing this very kind of complex history in the 1990s and noughties,
you know, particularly the sort of kind of precolonial points of synergy between like the Moors from 580 onwards and Arabic music.
And then later, like a 13th century sort of Persian poet and Sufi mystic Rumi and the the influence on the sort of big
development of early music and the troubadours which went into the sort of Elizabethan tradition.
And so the intention of that project is really to create a song cycle,
which kind of brings the stories of those Oxford scholars to life whilst pairing them up with historical composers
who were around sort of the same time and along with a sort of very ambitious kind of education project,
which involves a number of like London music hubs and other sort of professional
organisations whose mandate is to kind of promote diversity in classical music.
You know, in that way, students are introduced to these historical figures engaging in that history and sort of telling their stories through music.
And again, you know, compositionally there's a sort of similar challenge about how do I kind of tell that story, you know, with all of its nuance and.
So, you know, in a way, it's like really kind of strange to me that,
like the last few projects that I've mentioned have come out of the diasporic quartettes,
which is a piece that, you know, is yet to be performed, sort of nearing completion.
And sort of the idea for the piece for this piece came about in response to a spectator article.
Written in 2018, which was sort of opposing some of the kind of preliminary efforts of organisations such as like the BBC Proms or,
you know, Sound of Music, and to sort of increase commissioning opportunities for women and minorities and also the Ligeti quartet's efforts to
diversify through the implementation of a sort of two ticks policy as part of an open call that they were having,
which would, in essence, allow the very few banned composers that were applying for these opportunities
through to the sort of first round of their composer workshop selection process.
And I initially responded to the article with an extremely badly written blog post entitled Sharp's Remarks Fall Flat.
And I was, I think, really kind of compelled to do something that incorporated my art, because there seemed to be, in my view,
at least a great deal of opposition to the efforts of these organisations and not just in terms of strategy,
because, I mean, that's something that I think reasonable people can disagree.
But a more kind of fundamental opposition, which was usually on the basis of a slightly sort of lame kind of meritocrat meritocratic argument.
But I think the most disturbing thing for me was the lack of minority voices actually involved in that conversation,
as well as the sort of notable absence of class in those discussions. And I guess as a composer, I saw it as a kind of civic duty.
And I think, you know, I was like properly tribute, I think, to create in a very small,
very limited way a platform to document what I saw as kind of safeguarding the distinct and varied and underrepresented
perspectives and lived experiences of some of the UK's most sort of remarkable and interesting composers.
And to ensure that that, you know, BAME composers voices didn't sort of get kind of lost in the crossfire of the sort of culture war.
And I think distinct and varied is very important because there is a tendency, I think,
to view any group that's sort of not, you know, your own as a unified, homogenous bloc.
And I was sort of interested really in sort of showcasing the sort of artistic
and creative individualism of minority artists working in classical music.
And I think because the project at the time seemed like such an enormous undertaking,
it was sort of important for me that the kind of pre compositional research could sort of serve as a separate piece of artwork on its own and,
you know, beyond it, simply being a kind of springboard for music creation. And so I sort of settled on the idea of creating a documentary.
And in fact, it was probably the first time I'd engaged in any research directly linked to
a piece that could be sort of described as kind of genuinely compositional.
And, you know, any previous pieces of mind that have sort of involved any kind of research has
always been on sort of ongoing running in parallel to the composition itself.
You know, the composer Tomatis sort of makes this point in his conversations with Tom service, and I think rightly so,
that if sort of pre compositional research occurs in the middle of a piece, then, you know, what do you call that?
And so the documentary entitled Identity in the Anxiety of Influence, commissioned by The Sound of Music for the British Music Collection,
and the latter part of the title, taken from a book written by the critical theorist Harold Bloom called The Anxiety of Influence.
The series was a kind of a sort of showcase for the diversity of thought and attitude and creativity and musical language amongst sort of
composers of African and Caribbean heritage and based on interviews with the basis and founder of the Shinako Orchestra teaching in Africa,
but really focussing on the sort of four kind of exceptional composers who were talking about their lives and sort of creative process,
the first of whom was the multi instrumentalist indigeneity, who sort of talks about his kind of lifelong journey towards, you know,
achieving a synthesis between sort of Western classical music and, you know, African classical music,
his influences from the Griot tradition and sort of music of the African diaspora.
And he sort of discusses the artistic challenges navigating between two worlds, you know,
finding and searching for a kind of authentic musical language, which both I suppose embodies,
but also as well kind of transcends his dual heritage,
all of which is kind of the result of a cross pollination between his experiences as a career player,
the West African harp lute and also as a cellist. And I'll just play a little bit of his music.
Now, this is could alloca, which is.
Solo corer. And which, for some bizarre reason, isn't actually working.
So I'm sorry, will be gone at the next composer.
Is composer Philip Herbert, and I'm I'm sort of really delighted that he's been featured as part of this
symposium and he speaks on his sort of formal instrumental training at home,
at school and sort of later at Leeds College of Music and contributed to and
how that sort of contributed to his kind of aesthetic outlook as a composer.
And his music is sort of very much a kind of melting pot of styles,
which includes sort of influences from African American Negro spiritual music and
the dance rhythms from sort of Caribbean and Latin America or American minimalism,
soul, church, choral music, as well as a very sort of lyrical, I suppose,
distinctly English approach to melody writing and in a particularly drawn to the sort of sonic world of English twentieth century composers,
you know, Finzi, Williams et al. And.
The composer, Dominic Genpact, he's a Trinidadian born and based in Brixton, and she discusses sort of her early musical influences and experiences,
singing in choirs and sort of playing music in Trinidad and then at the Conservatoire,
the party with French guitarist and composer Hamlyn Devar, who's pictured and sort of speaks very eloquently on her connexion to literature.
And composer Daniel Kidane, who's a London based who discusses in the documentary sort of musical influences
growing up and the influences arising from his dual Russian and Eritrean heritage,
and how this sort of formal training in Russia and the U.K. kind of impacted his voice and ethos as a composer.
And can I say sort of, you know, as with historical composers, there are, you know,
of course, some sort of similarities in terms of their experiences in relation to,
I suppose, social and societal barriers, which have kind of shaped their perspectives and outlook as composers.
But I think when I sort of started this project,
I was really quite genuinely struck by sort of how different it played out in the music and the sort of kind of compositional strategies
they'd adopt that sort of differed really depending on the composer's stylistic interests and outlook and their sort of relationship to,
I suppose, their own kind of, you know, cultural heritage. And so.
For the peace, I really sort of wanted to create a kind of portraiture in four movements based on,
I suppose in part my kind of perceptions of the composer's personality.
You know, that sort of affects, you know, gathered from the documentary as well as sort of some aspects,
I suppose, of that kind of musical persona through, you know, exploring their repertoire.
And so the sort of underlying musical challenge, I think has been in a given their sort of very diverse outlooks.
You know, they're sort of very specific kind of musical concerns and different languages and styles.
And how do I sort of create a piece that kind of showcases that diversity, you know,
that sort of represents their identity whilst also at the same time sort of creating a kind of cohesiveness throughout each of the movements,
you know, to be sort of influenced perhaps, you know, by their kind of musical voices.
But, you know, not simply creating a series of, I think, pastiches.
And, you know, of course, importantly, as is often the case with sort of portraiture pieces like where do I fit into all of this?
You know, they the documentary, you know, tells their story, you know, sort of through the camera lens.
But I sort of also kind of, I suppose, wanted to show, I think, what I saw and very weirdly,
the sort of striking visual image that I think I had before beginning,
which sort of encapsulated I think what I was after,
was sort of akin to the kind of very famous Marilyn Monroe print by Andy Warhol in that sort of each image is is really distinct.
But there is this kind of sort of cohesiveness throughout sort of the whole piece.
And so the sort of the first question was really, you know,
after doing the documentary and really getting to know these four individual composers as sort of as people,
a personal human level, you know, which pieces do I choose from their repertoire?
And, you know, of course, sort of the most obvious, but not necessarily kind of correct conclusion would be, I suppose,
to, you know, select quartette, pieces, you know, given the fact that I'm writing a string quartette piece.
However, using quartette pieces as a vehicle for gaining insight into each composer's musical language,
I think comes with, you know, certain advantages and disadvantages. And in the case of some of the composers that quartette,
pieces were not really the most ideal examples to choose because they didn't
really always serve as the clearest representation of the composer's output.
And there are a number of reasons for that, I think,
which sort of differed between composers ranging from of question of familiarity and levels of comfort with the medium itself to the sort of,
you know,
individual kind of preference for sonic textures and layers that could be sort of accommodated more effectively by other ensemble combinations.
And, you know, in the case of, say, someone like Dominique, legendary, you know,
her passion for stage works in opera and sort of music, theatre and particularly Bird of Night,
which is adapted from the tale, was originally commissioned by the Royal Opera House and John Melosi,
an adaptation of Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale. And, you know, along with her, you know,
passion for literature and particularly a fondness for the work of poet and playwright Derek Woolcott's seemed a sort of more kind of clearly aligned,
at least to my impression,
of her very kind of layered persona than necessarily her string quartette piece this young man, which is a really wonderfully sort of beautiful piece,
and in keeping with much of her musical language, but didn't necessarily, in my view,
fully encompass the kind of spectrum and those layers of her personality.
And I suppose the journey that we went through together,
spending a day to sort of get to know each other and the kind of the playfulness and then what was behind that
was this kind of sort of there was a real sort of seriousness there as well that I found really interesting.
And although the couplets upon which is based, I think,
gives a very sort of clear impression of those layers, earthbound and enslaved to matter is our plight.
Through darkness, our spirit will reach for the light.
And in the case of Philip, herbut because of his very sort of eclectic output, that there isn't really, I think,
a sort of single piece that kind of fully encapsulates the breadth of his musical interests and sort of stylistic scope as a composer.
And I mean, also my own sort of creative exploration began prior to my commissioning of his yet to be
premiered piece in contemplation and the sort of the recently commissioned solicitude of,
oh, I actually said it right. I think that's great. And which received its premiere, I think on Monday by the Phileas quartette.
And so, you know, his movement required a kind of sort of exploration of several pieces along the stylistic spectrum.
And 10 day jeopardy, in his case,
the advantage of sort of exploring his quartette writing was actually that that it it
really did provide kind of insight into his attitude and stance to orchestration,
but sort of unlike a lot of his larger chamber and orchestral music in a much more sort of condensed format and as well as,
you know, managing to sort of reveal some of the, I think, foundations of his compositional thinking,
which is apparent in his sort of solo career repertoire, which serves, I think, in my view, is the sort of purest representation of him as a composer.
So I'll sort of kind of touch briefly on cecchini string quartettes and sort of how that kind of fed into the first movement of my string quartette.
So check this quartette. Number one entitled, Like In the Circle of Truth,
was composed in 1995 and was premiered by members of the London Sinfonietta as part of an African classical music
concert organised by YACKETY and fellow Jamaican born composer pianist Paul Glads to read Southbank Centre.
And the piece itself has since then only been performed by members of the orchestra,
a group consisting of Nigerian musicians keen to sort of protect and preserve distinct varieties of African classical music,
and particularly the sort of unique sounds and rhythms of West Africa,
as well as older African musical traditions and repertoire in danger of being lost or forgotten.
And it's also had performances with the Somali ensemble who've explored,
amongst other things, that confluence between Western Baroque and African influences.
And these two groups, along with sort of several other ensembles, were founded by educating himself.
And, you know, it's a really fascinating single work lasting around about 11 minutes sort of on the nose.
Hopefully my iTunes will work, but I will give you a little blast perhaps of the first few pages.
The first minute or so of this piece.
So, yeah, I mean, I think one of the reasons that for me at least that it's such an interesting piece is that, you know,
in spite of its apparent sort of surface simplicity on the page, you know,
a simple melody harmonised in fourth's above a drone which plays throughout the entire opening section.
And then later on in the piece, this is sort of a kind of a rocking back and forth between minor thirds in the cello D to F and then later on E flat.
And and yet the piece still sort of displays some incredible textural variety, which is,
I think, one of the more sophisticated and sort of tantalising aspects of jacketless writing.
And I'll just go to the next slide. You know, but the sort of relatively simple harmonic movement, you know,
might be or static harmonic movement perhaps might well be the reason why Jeopardy at certain points has been sort of wrongly labelled, in my view,
at least as sort of minimalist composer and which is a kind of a curious designation, I suppose, given that there are no immediate,
precise similarities between the two, you know, beyond the fact that the piece has some elements of repetition.
And then later on in the piece, the sort of textures become increasingly more complex and embellishing this rather sort
of simple melody through the staggering of entries between the first and second violin.
And it's clear is the piece sort of unfolds that he has found a way to imply a kind of improvisational quality,
even though it's a sort of conventionally notated work, which I think can be sort of attributed to his talents as a as a core player.
And and then towards the middle of the piece, we sort of begin to see more in the way of Chekov's a metrical writing,
you know, becoming much more sort of experimental in his layering of African influenced textures.
You know, I think that you can sort of be forgiven for sort of overlooking the kind of simplistic, you know,
rhythmic aspects at the beginning and sort of towards the end because of the sort of textural and voicing sparsity,
you know, its reliance on Daytona's system.
And and it's almost sort of lullabye equality, particularly towards the close of the piece, which kind of lobs one into,
I suppose, a false sense of security, you know, masking the kind of complex and, you know, metrical nature of the work.
And, you know, it's possible to sort of talk about, you know, this piece for an hour or more and never really kind of get to the bottom of it.
And so, as I mentioned, has composed two string quartettes and the first in 1994, the second written five years later in 1999,
which is sort of similarly rhythmically driven piece, as I said,
are very different in its kind of sonic terrain with theatrical gestures and compositional concerns.
You know, both quartettes consist of single movements lasting 11 minutes.
And then a third piece called Exile and Return, which was premiered in 2007 by the quartette,
which, you know, even though is a piece for five instruments,
core and conventional string quartette really deserves to be, I think, considered within the context of those other quartette pieces.
And it's also worth noting, I think,
that these quartette pieces sort of sit within an enormous body of string music from his cello concerto implication to solo cello
repertoire featured on his album Testimony whereby Bach Cello Suites wanted to sit alongside several of his solo cello works.
So the Quartette number two, which was commissioned by The Brodsky quartette in 1998 as part of a sort of larger
body of commissions under the umbrella Opus 18 project whereby six composers,
which included the Mexican Happy Alvarez, the Russian Eleanor, it's over.
British composer and violist Sally Beamish were selected to respond to one of the six quartettes from the set of Beethoven's Opus 18,
or premiered at Cabot Hall on the Isle of Dogs in 1999 and subsequently recorded alongside their respective
descendents for the Brodsky's Opus 18 Millennium Challenge Classics recording released in 2003.
I would give you a very, very quick plussed. And.
And so I think like my initial concern about sort of drawing from the second quarter, which was a response to Beethoven's Opus 18 number two,
it's sort of it's kind of somewhat set apart from those other two quartettes that I mentioned.
And I think due in part to it sort of following a very similar formal trajectory to the Opus 18,
which was a major influence on the structure of the piece.
But also as well, I think, drawing direct inspiration from many of the gestures and contours within the Beethoven quartette itself,
whilst at the same time being kind of substantially different to it in terms of its musical style and language and and content.
And, you know, in spite of the inference is sort of remarkable how kind of sonically distinct number two is from its its descendent.
I mean, he mentions that where Beethoven arrives at a waltz, he kind of comes to a sort of reggae influenced rhythmic motif.
And where Beethoven is extending, you know, the parameters of harmonic possibilities of this period,
it is sort of pushing himself by delving into postmodern harmonic chordal structures.
And I think also with sort of numerous like harmonic similarities to the Bartok String quartettes.
And I found it fascinating, actually, when I discussed this piece with him in the documentary series,
because the impacts to which the sort of numerous external, I suppose, attempts to kind of pigeonhole his work,
either kind of inaccurately designating his music as some kind of derivative of jazz or as a branch of kind of Western minimalism,
post minimalism and the extent to which this sort of label kind of motivated him to then want to go on to explore new territory.
And I think it certainly taught me the extent to which reaction against those kinds of external perceptions.
It's sort of kind of shaped him as a as a composer. The aspect I think that's missing from the second quarter is sort of these habitual
approach to form and given its sort of close structural alignment to the sateen,
whereas with quartette number one, there's a sort of very clear sense of his sort of improvisational approach,
which is sort of very much apparent, even in a sort of composed notated piece.
And I should caveat that sort of drawing on themes and melodies from sort of specific Western
classical pieces is not necessarily the primary aspect that sort of separates those two quartettes.
Again, in my view, since, you know, his repertoire also includes other compositions that sort of directly draw from other classical works.
You know, the most obvious example being the chamber oratorio, African Masire, drawing from some of the themes in areas of Handel's Messiah.
And sort of just as an aside, I think that there are, you know,
perhaps some interesting parallels between his work and I suppose like other transcultural interpretations of Western classical pieces,
the Arabian passion by ensemble subba based on box son Matthew Passion.
And so sort of despite these differences, the two quartettes in terms of their focus,
the sort of they both kind of encompass this sort of broad range of references to traditional and folk music,
you know, which is still apparent in both. And as with number two, number one is this sort of highly rhythmically driven piece.
Both are expansive and sort of cohesive in the use of instrumentation.
And and both sort of resists the often, I suppose,
inaccurate assumptions about classical string quartette writing as this sort of discourse between four equal voices.
And I think that what's sort of particularly interesting about number one is that it contains
all of those kind of formal and technical qualities of these sort of improvised corer music.
So even though there is this kind of dissimilar TUJ between the harmonic language of the two quartettes, the second quarter,
I think very much encapsulates that aspect of defiance or sort of pushing against expectations,
which is sort of very much part of his kind of outward, I suppose, personality.
And I think it's an aspect of his personality that isn't necessarily present in the rest of his music.
So. For his movement, which I entitled the day to day, I was sort of thinking about, you know,
my sort of response to these various musical aspects that that can be found in his music.
I was sort of kind of mindful of Bach, I suppose, inspired by folk melodies,
inspired by his sort of Quartel writing and playing with alternative metres and sort of syncopation within compar metres.
And then also in the back of my mind, sort of thinking about the the sort of, I suppose, connexion between the fingers and the corer in a way.
And that's sort of very intricate, sort of fast moving figuration and the sort of contrapuntal layers and ease of use of a metrical phrases.
And on the other hand, you know, I was also kind of mindful of his persona, you know,
his passion, his sort of directness, thoughtfulness, his sort of spiritual,
almost kind of other worldliness and this sense of kind of defiance and sort of kind of trying to achieve,
I suppose, that balance between kind of persona and sort of musical persona.
So before I sort of wrap up, I just play you a brief snippet of my 10 day Jeopardy movement.
And. OK, so I hope that I haven't bought you too much and I would just like to thank Jonah,
but it won't stop Tichina Boulevard and also Tooch once again for inviting me.
And just to say thank you for giving me an hour or so of your time and thank you for listening.
Thank you so much. This is really, really fascinating talk from you just now.
And so I'm having a little problem with my screen, Larry, and really,
really interesting to hear firstly about all those composers that you've mentioned, which I think it's worth flagging.
You can find out more about those composers like Tonday, Jacob de Philip Herbet,
Dominique Leandre and Daniel Kidane in your annual Your Documentary series, which is available on YouTube.
And that's let me find the title of that as well. So identity and the anxiety of influence and influence.
Yeah, and I should if I can just jump in as well.
I should also say that in I think November, barring sort of their covid situation of this year,
we're having a concert at LSU, St. Luke's where you can hear quartette, pieces by all of those documentary composers,
Philip Herberts and premier of In Contemplation and also a newly commissioned work for four string
quartette by Daniel Kidane and Dominic sledging a human and also to check Japanese quartette.
Number two, alongside my sort of four movement work, the Dysport quartettes.
Fantastic.
That sounds like a really superb events and it would be really great to hear all of those pieces together after listening to your talk today.
That sounds fantastic. Yes. Thank you so much for everything that you said today, giving us real insights into your own approach as a composer,
but also all of these those of a composer that you've spoken about and where they've
drawn their influences from and as well as their own kind of compositional approaches.
So I don't know if there's any questions in the chat.
I'll just be having a little look, we've got some lovely comments from people as we've gone along, which is lovely.
So, Alexandra Douglas, very pleased to hear the score.
Experts as well as her. They've recorded excerpts. And I think that's quite a pertinent comment, really,
because I wonder if that's something that I've noticed when I've been looking to try to better
represent composers from minority ethnicities in things like course materials for my students.
I've often found it more difficult to actually locate recordings and scores from those composers and those kinds
of resources that you want to share with students so that they can really engage with that with the music.
That's actually kind of really kind of funny.
You mention that because I was looking through William Grant, still African American Symphony, and I was sort of shocked.
I mean, it is it is published. Sorry, that's my dog barking. I think it is published.
But what was amazing to me is that it's it's still kind of like sort of Henry Charles and really, really written badly.
I'm sorry about my dog. Yeah.
I mean, I think it is it is this aspect of, I suppose, access as well in a way,
because these guys, in essence, really were kind of lucky that they had their stuff published.
And I'm always very curious about all of the composers who sort of fell by the wayside in a sense who perhaps weren't lucky enough in that way.
So it is I think it is something that in essence, that we really have to kind of search for.
And I think it's without meaning to sound preachy.
I think it's very easy to sort of be quiet, I suppose, kind of critical in a way of things that aren't happening.
And I think a better strategy is actually to do the work yourselves and to try to find these pieces and to represent them,
which it sounds like, you know, you've been doing, you know. Well, I've been trying to.
Yeah. And I've found that often the best way is to actually contact the composer directly.
But then I do worry that I'm sort of taking up their time when they could be writing some fantastic music.
So that's always a concern. Anything else that we could say?
So is any of the comments. Oh, yes, sir.
Alexander Douglas mentioning another article that's appeared in The Spectator and saying Baim composers
do need to be heard from and be able to helpfully articulate the problems of these types of viewpoints.
And yes, I certainly agree with that.
And so Bullivant says in this project, we've explored very difficult issues, but I've felt a real sense of joy,
of discovery in the repertoire, the new commissions, the student composers experiences.
Well, I'm super happy, too. I think that's a really genuinely kind of an amazing project.
And so. Yeah, know. Well done. Everyone involved.
And one question here, questions are, does yesterday with the question with the commission Composers',
we discussed the role of Western notation and you mentioned your desire for flexibility of forces and performance context in the Windrush.
I don't know if you how do you is that if this is the same question about the use of notation in relation to music education and composition,
exploring different musical styles? Oh, that's a really it's a really good question.
And it's also a sort of really kind of complex and layered question.
And I my personal view is that I, I kind of don't have a problem with it.
And I think that's probably maybe in part to my experiences working in in popular
music and popular music education for 12 years as a senior lecturer in one of
Britain's sort of leading rock and pop schools and actually teaching theory in applied
harmony and seeing the extent to which notation is used as part of pop music,
I think certainly the difference in terms of sort of pop is, of course,
it's got to roll is is kind of greatly diminished, but it's not something that doesn't happen.
And sort of similarly as well in in sort of jazz music.
And I think in one way, it kind of in relation to sort of diversity, there is a danger of like a sort of racism, of lowered expectations.
And again, these presumptions that we have to be sort of really careful about what we're saying about that.
So, yeah, I mean, personally, I don't really I don't really have a problem with it.
I think that it is it becomes more of an issue when engaging in kind of cross-cultural work.
Right. And so, you know, working with Dr. Jauhari, you know, she doesn't read music.
And so that really involved a kind of really interesting, you know,
conversation where we were sort of learning one another's language in a way, I mean,
you know, in a very sort of small way, but then prompting me as a composer to not be so kind of beholden to like the school and Western notation.
And I think that that's a really good thing. I don't know if that answers the question.
Yeah, I think. Thank you very much does yeah, and I think I've had students expressed to me that, oh,
I've not had access to the sort of education that some of my peers have had access to.
And therefore, my fluency in reading notation and writing with notation is, you know, is impaired.
And I think. Yeah, I mean, but this was I mean, again, this is, you know, something obviously working with,
you know, pop musicians, you know, like, I can really completely relate to that.
And I think many had maybe not even had any experience with music notation, but had sort of been kind of told or assumed that it was difficult.
And I think that what I learnt from from working with them was almost what would happen is the student would become kind of quite angry in a way that
either they were sort of denied access to this stuff or that they had sort of
picked up on this idea that it sort of is really difficult and complicated.
And and I do understand that there are some some, I suppose, you know, exceptions in relation to disabilities.
And that is something that we, you know, definitely and absolutely have to be sort of mindful of.
But I think it's also about as well, really considering the context of the specific style and genre and that you're looking at and thinking about,
how significant is that particular role, whether it's improvisation,
whether it's, I don't know, training, whether it's music production and sort of just thinking about it sort of contextually
within the these sort of inherent needs and demands of the genre itself.
Totally.
Oh, yeah, it was also lovely, I didn't say it's lovely to hear that extracts of your own quartettes as well as the extracts of the people's music.
I don't know if there's anything more that you feel that you can say about about your own composition.
That particular piece that. Yes. Diasporic quartettes piece, whether there's anything else that you could add.
I can. The kind of layering of the kind of shimmering texture really captivating that I think.
I think for me, the most interesting thing about that particular piece is very weirdly, I think I learnt something as very important for me,
at least as a composer doing the documentary and the extent to which, you know,
doing something like that where you are, because it was essentially just me with a camera.
I had a suitcase and I was travelling all around the country and spending a day really getting to know these people.
And it was all each session was almost like a kind of therapy session in a way.
And just the extent to which really sitting back and I suppose knowing the questions to ask,
but sitting back and really listening and kind of having to absorb and take on all of those sort of personality aspects,
because I knew that I would use it creatively later on.
And I think in a way that's sort of maybe influenced a little bit how I think about sort of interacting and kind of getting to know the music,
that it's also equally important that we really sit back and really listen to, you know,
what composers are saying both with the score and, you know, without the score.
Yeah, and I really like the idea of kind of portrait's pieces which have have been explored a lot historically.
But I think normally after the person sadly passed away.
So it's like it's a really nice thing to have a kind of living portrait of a living a living person.
Right. And it's yeah. I mean, it's not that like I mean, these are for exceptional composers.
You don't need, like, my involvement to kind of pick them up in some way, shape or form.
But I think I I also saw this sort of relating in some way to this idea of kind of safeguarding in that sense that like, you know,
if I've written a piece and that has references to these composers and that that's kind of something that we sort of do in a way.
It has, I don't know, a sort of a similar sort of trajectory to the idea of documenting individual stories, I suppose.
Yes, lovely. We've got one more question in the chat from Alexander Douglas,
could I say something about how he feels the way in which the current composer
establishment disavows the word classical while still using it for Indian contexts,
etc.? If you're able to see that as well as. Yeah, it's a good.
It's an interesting question and which I'm not quite sure I'm willing to engage with just now,
but I think the thing that has inspired and has been inspiring to me about that question is I sort of saw a similar thing,
I think, which was to do with questioning whether composers should be called composers and the sort of the problematic nature of the word composer.
And I I had a very kind of and it sort of surprised me how strong the reaction was.
But my reaction was to think about this sort of, you know,
centuries of underrepresented groups who have really fought long and hard to be recognised as composers.
You know, the I don't know, the graffiti artist wants to be recognised as an artist and not a creative practitioner, whatever that means.
And so, yeah, I do I, I completely accept that, that there is,
in my view and in my opinion sometimes that we have a tendency to focus on really the wrong thing.
And we have to think about the sort of unintended consequences of that.
You know, as a sort of underrepresented artist.
I you know, I think I've certainly been very mindful, I think, of the issues within,
say, for instance, music education, where you have on the one hand,
a sort of a kind of counselling, an environment of counselling, which is budgetary,
which is to do with kind of funding or to do these sort of policies. So, for instance, the sort of 2012 Education Reform Act that made it, I think,
non compulsory for certain boroughs to fund certain music projects and the impact and the cumulative impact that that sort of cuts
and those fundings have had over the last 30 years on things like youth orchestras and youth orchestras in working class areas.
But at the same time, I'm also aware of a certain kind of rhetoric, which is sort of, I suppose, kind of on the left,
which is a kind of sort of cultural I see it as a kind of sort of cultural counselling in a way that is often based on sort of lots of assumptions,
I think, about the sort of diversity of the experience of the underrepresented groups of which they are speaking about.
And I think we have to be really, really careful about that, too.
So, yeah, I you know, as I don't want to be told that I'm not a composer, basically, because I feel like I've worked hard to be recognised as one.
I don't know if that answers the question. Absolutely,
I think that's really important that we should be able to claim the labels that we want to claim for ourselves rather than them being imposed upon us.
I suppose I want to thank you for the question anyway.
I don't think there are any more questions in the charts at the moment,
so if there's anything else that you've not managed to say so far that you thought might be important to add, and I genuinely don't think so.
I just want to say thanks for everyone for giving me a little bit of of your time.
And I hope you have a fantastic rest of Wednesday through I and and it's been really
a great pleasure to have you speaking today to assist in a really fantastic event.
Could you remind us when your allessio. So it will at this stage.
It will be at some point in November, right.
I can't be clearer than that. But I do the Rush project, I think, which I mentioned before, that's being broadcast on the 22nd of June,
which is the community choir piece online so people can have access to it if they log on to the Pegasus Opera Company's website.
That's fantastic. So lots of lots of things to be looking out for and lovely music to be heard in the coming months.
So thank you. Thank you once again. And thank you to everybody who has joined us on YouTube.
I hope you have a lovely rest of your day. Goodbye.