News
Photo: Andrzej Wawrowski
September 2010: New fanfare for Bristol Brass Consort's 25th Birthday Concert
Liz has written a new fanfare to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Bristol Brass Consort and will be performed at a celebratory concert on 2nd October 2010 at St George's Bristol. A chance meeting in 1985 between Liz and fellow ex-founder and trumpet player Lawrence Dunn, led to the formation of the quintet, in which she played the french horn for several years before moving away to University.
Bristol Brass Consort, well-known and respected throughout the Bristol area, recently returned from a successful trip to Paris and now performs mostly as a ten piece. The fanfare, entitled Anniversary Fanfare, lasts for four minutes and is scored for four trumpets, horn, four trombones and tuba with optional percussion; it will open the second half of the programme and precede Bernstein's Westside Story Suite.
July 2010: David Fanshawe 1942-2010
David Fanshawe: friend, mentor, colleague and musical collaborator, sadly died on 5th July 2010. I have worked closely with David during the last few years; he was a great friend and professional colleague to many people. This website commemorates his amazing life: www.davidfanshawe.com.
May 2010: Fascinatin' Rhythm
Liz has been commissioned to arrange Gershwin's Fascinatin' Rhythm for double wind quintet. The arrangement will be for a concert on 26th September 2010 given by wind dectet New Harmonie entitled The Golden Age of Popular Songs and Dance, featuring specially commissioned arrangements of music from the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
April 2010: USA performance of new work for brass band
Liz is writing a new work for brass band which will receive the US premiere by Brass Band Northwest in Seattle next Summer. The music and title will be inspired by the original manuscripts of Vivaldi, recently discovered at Gloucestershire's Berkeley Castle.
March 2010: premiere and concert recording of Jaleo
The Carducci Quartet's performance of Liz's new string quartet, Jaleo, received two ovations at its premiere in Cardiff on 2nd March. Described by one audience member as "a shifting kaleidoscope of colours and textures that managed to be evocative while never falling back on the merely picturesque", the recording can now be heard on Sound Clips.
February 2010: Inspiration Choir and Northern Sinfonia/Orchestra of Opera North to play The Lord's Prayer
The Inspiration Choir and Northern Sinfonia will play Liz's arrangement of David Fanshawe's The Lord's Prayer from his African Sanctus at The Sage, Gateshead on Sunday 21st March. The two concerts, entitled Sing Together: Celebration with Inspiration Choir will take place at 3pm and 7.30pm. A further performance will take place on Sunday 28th March with Orchestra of Opera North at Leeds Town Hall.
December 2009: PhD
Liz has completed and passed her PhD in Composition and is thrilled! She studied at Cardiff University where her supervisor was Professor Anthony Powers, also taking lessons with the composer Judith Weir.
The centrepiece of her PhD portfolio is a large-scale 40 minute symphonic work for orchestra, Time Travel, of which the final movement, Somewhere Unknown, was performed by the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera in October 2008. Also included is Words, Wide Night, a song cycle for tenor voice, piano and string quartet (first performed by Andrew Kennedy, Daniel Hill and the Carducci Quartet in 2007). Smaller works include Through the Window 1729 for clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, violin, double bass and percussion, Three Motets for unaccompanied choir, Heritage: Horizons for euphonium and piano, Landscapes for baritone voice and piano, Cloud Colours for brass dectet, Linear Lines for solo horn (commissioned by the US horn player Marlene Ford for a series of lecture-recitals in 2010) and the Spanish influenced string quartet Jaleo (which will be premiered by the Carducci Quartet in March 2010).
September 2009: inputting and editing the music of Muriel Herbert
Liz has been asked to type-set and edit songs by the composer Muriel Herbert (1897-1984) from original manuscripts. The songs, mostly unknown and undiscovered until now, have enjoyed excellent reviews following a recent recording, Songs of Muriel Herbert, by the tenor James Gilchrist, soprano Ailish Tynan, accompanied by the pianist David Owen Norris.
August 2009: Carducci Quartet to perform new string quartet Jaleo
The Carducci Quartet will be giving the world premiere of Jaleo on 2nd March 2010 at Cardiff University as part of the School of Music's professional Concert Series. The Spanish influenced Jaleo is a three movement work written especially for the quartet. The title refers to shouts of encouragement by the audience during a flamenco performance, also a recognition of 'duende', the inner spirit believed to be released through the performer's intense involvement with the music.
May 2009: 18th birthday present surprise
Liz met with the young baritone singer Robert Clark to hand over the manuscript of Landscapes, commissioned especially for him as a surprise 18th birthday present. The ten minute work consists of three songs: Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emmonsail's Heath in Winter by John Clare and My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth and the first performance is planned for 2010.
April 2009: new arrangement of Turnabout for Westerly Winds
Liz will be arranging Turnabout for the wind dectet Westerly Winds, to be performed as part of the St Cuthbert's Music Festival, Wells, Somerset, on 1st September 2009. Turnabout was commissioned in 2005 by the wind nonet Southwark Winds Ancient and Modern Ensemble.
March 2009: USA commission for solo horn
Liz has been commissioned to write a work for solo horn which will be performed by the horn player Marlene Ford at a lecture/recital in the USA in next year. The music will be based on the chant In principio omnes by Hildegard of Bingen.
September 2008: Orchestra of Welsh National Opera world premiere
The Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, conductor Andrew Greenwood, will give the world premiere of Somewhere Unknown at Wales Millennium Centre on 19th October at a Gala Concert to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Cardiff University. The Concert features internationally renowned tenor Dennis O'Neill and will be hosted by BBC presenter Huw Edwards.
Somewhere Unknown is an eight minute work and is the last movement of a large-scale work for orchestra, the central focus of Liz's PhD. It was written in 2004 and first workshopped by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at their Composer's Days workshops in 2005.