New Web Site

February has been a blur. Mostly of terrific things. A highlight is the fact that my new web site is now launched, thanks to the adroit cyber super-competence of one James Gillingham who once again is single-handedly keeping afloat my public profile (for free!). Jim, you are a superstar and I love the site. Check it out!

Jazz Ballet Premiere

Saturday evening saw the premiere of my Jazz Ballet Fantine at the Turner Sims Concert Hall Southampton, with yours truly conducting the Southampton University Jazz Orchestra. It went really well, especially considering how close we came to not doing it - it came together quite late on in the day. My thanks go not only to the wonderful players in SUJO, but also to the committee for agreeing to do it, and especially Matt Higginson the musical director, whose professionalism and har work saw this horse to the post.
I am now back into Superstorm, orchestrating for Episode 3. Eeeek: lots to juggle next week, including teaching at University and the performance of Face In The Crowd at the Greenwich theatre on Wednesday.

Abbey Road Session Two

Wow...... the second session of Superstorm (which I have been orchestrating) happened last night at Abbey Road, and again was a really exciting moment for me personally and professionally. Mark Sayer-Wade's score is really first-rate for this project, and matches the picture very very well, and it is such a pleasure working alongside my old RCM buddy Jon Paxman (a horribly talented man). Again we had the awsome Julian Kershaw conducting (a consumate professional whose birthday is coming up: Happy Birthday Julian!), and an orchestra filled with the world's finest players. I'm not kidding: I had a chance to look at the personnel this time, and just as an example we had on horns Richard Watkins, Mike Thompson, David Pyatt and Richard Berry, and on trumpets the legendary Maurice Murphy and the awesome John Barclay. It goes on and on... the whole orchestra was fabulous. It is a real privilege to be working with these people on this project. Roll on no 3.

I also have to start thinking about my own conducting as well, as my jazz ballet Fantine will be premiered on Saturday 24th February at the Turner Sims Concert Hall in Southampton. then the following week (alongside Superstorm episode 3 orchestrations) I'm back at Greenwich Theatre to see the performance of the ten-Minute Musical collaboration I worked on last week, Face In The Crowd, which will be showcased alongside the five other collaborations. It will be interesting to see what others have come up with. So today is a rare day off amongst all this busy-ness. It's a beautiful day outside. Think I will go for a jog....

Songwriting

Besides the work have been blogging about recently, I am also currently working on a few other projects that have ongoing, longer-term time scales which I work on on I have "free time". One of these is a songwriting project where I have been writing songs and recording them in order to place them with recording artists. I had a session in December with the male vocalist Sam James and several in January with Kate Brown, and I am now getting round to working up demos on them, with the engineering expertise of Tony Reeves and Jon Gingell (whom is also playing guitar on them, making a quantum difference). These sessions have been really fun, and I am once again in awe of the talents of others.

Greenwich theatre: Ten-Minute Musical Challenge

(Queen riff) dum dum dum... another one bites the dust....
Hoorah, just done my stint as Composer at Greenwich Theatre's Ten Minute musical Challenge, working with lyricist Michael Hobbs ( really nice guy who will be playing Treebeard in the Lord of the Rings the Musical when it hits town) and humurous bookwriter Tobey Davies. It was a hectic day, with me and Mike working right down to the wire on our songs. Our show was called Face In The Crowd and we gave a run though during the evening. It will be performed again on Wednesday 28th September at Greenwich Theatre, by the fabulous Anthony Berkley and the gorgeous Mary Stockley, who also ran it today (quite brilliantly I might add). It was good to work alongside the legendary Mike Dixon (music director and THE world's nicest man, after my Dad) and the fab Fiona Laird (director) who is such a sweetie.
So now it is just the orchestrating on Superstorm Episode 2 for Abbey Road next week that will keep me from my nice warm bed....

Research Seminar at Southampton University

Phew! Just done my Research Seminar yesterday afternoon at Southampton University. My Title was Sisyphus and the Curse Of the Re-write in which I used the myth of Sisyphus (the Greek protagonist who was doomed to roll a boulder up a mountainside to its peak, only to fail, and watch it roll down the mountain to the vallet below) as a metaphor for a compser who has to re-write the same material over again, as I have done with my musical Jazzed Tales. I cited Camus' 1942 essay on Sisyphus as well, but didn't agree with his rather bleak 'life-is-futile' conclusion. Perhaps I resist gloomy existential paradigms. The glass is half full....
The session went okay, I think: discussion afterwards centred on the verisimilitude of my satire of Amercian culture, and the identity of jazz. My colleague Tom Irvine even bought a CD, bless him. Lovely fella.
I will be orchestrating for Superstorm today, and off to do the Greenwich theatre 10 minute Musical event tomorrow, before I plug into more orchestration for episode 2 and the Abbey Road session #2 next week. Busy!

Abbey Road Session 1

Thursday (8th Feb) evening saw the first session of Superstorm at Abbey Road, with the fabulous Julian Kershaw (really charming and funny man) conducting a 40-odd piece orchestra consisting of London's finest session players. It was a good session, and I was really pleased with how my orchestrations are sounding, and how well Mark Sayer-Wade's (also a terribly nice person) music fitted to picture. It was really good to work alongside Jon Paxman (a good friend from my Royal College of Music Days) who has been working on the project as an arranger with Mark for Music Sculptors, and to meet Sasha Puttnam who also contributed several orchestrations. Session two will be coming up week after next, and I'm hoping it will be as exciting and stimulating a project.

February is proving to be a terribly hectic month: I am giving a reserach seminar on my composition at Southampton University on Tuesday13th Feb, and then am participating in the Ten-Minute Musical Scheme at Greenwich Theatre on the 15th. Then I'm locked into Superstorm episode two, before conducting the premiere of my big band ballet Fantine at the Turner Simms Concert Hall in Southampton on Sunday 24th Feb. Then episode three, At Abbey Road im early March. It's a busy time, but I wouldn't be doing anything else....