2020 continues to be a highly productive year for our composers. Lots of piano pieces this month, but also orchestral and chamber works. We also welcome Tonia Ko with an initial offering of six works.
Also available as a PDF and an MS Excel Spreadsheet.
Prach Boondiskulchok
Inventions
for any keyboard instrument
Seven short two-part compositions that can be performed on any type of keyboard instrument with the range of 5-octave FF-f’’’, including most historical keyboards. This set has also been arranged for any combination involving violin, viola and cello.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, arr. Richard Birchall
Sonnet d’Amour
from Petite Suite de Concert (op.77) for piano solo
From Petite Suite de Concert (op.77, 1910) by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and arranged by Richard Birchall in 2020.
Laurence Crane
Bushra El-Turk
Ostina-bush-to
for piano solo
This short piece is an imitation using Bartok’s Mikrokosmos Volume 6, No.146
Christopher Fox
Widerstehen
ein Dokument in acht Szenen (a chamber opera in eight scenes)
Based directly on the life and death of my grandfather’s eldest child, Elisabeth von Thadden, who was executed on 8th September 1944 in Plötzensee prison in Berlin. The text draws on family documents and material from the Museum of the German Resistance in Berlin, other archives and books on her life. Written for ensemble recherche.
Anthony Gorb
A Paean for Peter
for piano solo
In memory the composer’s father Peter Gorb 1926 – 2013, an arrangement of a movement of a chamber orchestra piece, entitled ‘A Celebration’, written for the Northern Chamber Orchestra in 2014.
Jeffrey Holmes
Thrall (solo piano version)
for solo piano
For Aron Kallay. A solo version of the same work for piano and five instruments.
Tonia Ko
Negative Magic
for snare drum
Commissioned by Michael Compitello for the “Unsnared Drum” Project, a piece that discovers richness and complexity by relinquishing control.
The Sea as Fallacy
for wind quintet and piano
Commissioned by the Wege Durch Das Land Festival 2020 for Berlin Counterpoint. Grand spectral harmonic fields reinterpreted with the goal of a more intimate expression. “For me, growing up on small islands, the work’s shifting foundations of tonality resembles the surface of a sea – mostly quite peaceful with only slight wrinkles, but at other times with violent waves crashing down”.
Soothe a Tooth
for solo viola
Co-Commissioned by Riot Ensemble and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.\n\nSoothe a Tooth is a brief contemplation on clenched jaws, cracked teeth, and dry tongues – as well as the coping techniques one might try in order to soothe these invisible stress responses.
Simple Fuel
for large ensemble
Commissioned by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition for the Grossman Ensemble Simple Fuel explores concepts of movement: our emotion motivations, physical momentum, and the repetition of gestures.
Ion Marmarinos
L’Enfant Avec Les Trois Clepsydres
for violin and horn
Through lyricism and playfulness the first two sections reflect a child’s exploration and experimentation with an hourglass, while the last section reveals its function and purpose.
Phillip Neil Martin
Funky Bowl (duet version)
for piano duet
based on a theme by Michael Nyman called “Upon Drinking in a Bowl” from the soundtrack to the film “The Libertine.” this is a fun little piece made out of canons. A student playing with their teacher may wish to play the lower part, Piano II – in this case the Primo part. Also Available for two pianos
Rhythm, Fallin’ Blues
for piano solo
A short piano piece inspired by R&B, exploring a single overlapping blues scale. The piece is light, playful and should be played with lots of pedal.
Odaline de la Martinez
Three Pieces
for percussion and electronics
Commissioned and premiered by James Wood at the Wells-on-Sea Arts Centre, and performed again at the Purcell Room, London.
Stephen Roberts
Pandemical Variations
for piano
A set of variations on a Chopin-esque nocturne composed during the extended pandemic lockdown of 2020. The word pandemic implies ‘all people’ and the variations echo different styles and eras, gradually becoming more abstract. The rigor of the final fugue on the minor key theme is quickly shrugged off, allowing the major key theme to conclude with optimistic ebullience.
Susannah Self
The Poet’s Muse
for solo piano
Inspired by the English Georigan poet John Drinkwater, who is guided by The Muse in the opera ‘Quilt Song’.
Linda Catlin Smith
Marc Yeats
Conversational Geometry
for amplified acoustic guitar, tenor trombone and piano
Dedicated to Dirk Amrein
Pagan I
for orchestra
PAGAN I and PAGAN II may be performed as independent pieces, however, ideally, they should be performed as two parts of one continuous piece. Dedicated to Peter Maxwell Davies.
Tags: Anthony Gorb, Bushra El-Turk, Christopher Fox, Ion Marmarinos, Jeffrey Holmes, Laurence Crane, Linda Catlin Smith, Odaline de la Martinez, Prach Boondiskulchok, Richard Birchall, Stephen Roberts, Susannah Self, Tonia Ko