I knew I would enjoy composing a flute concerto. Indeed, flutes abound in all my orchestral works and I have even written a sonata for tonight’s soloist and dedicatee Andrew Nicholson. But I also knew I wanted to avoid the textures of impressionism – definitely no Pan, fauns or mythological beasts this time; here I sought melodic immediacy and rhythmic drive, perhaps reflecting the Mozart, Weber, Copland clarinet concerti I learnt in my student days.Don’t…
Nuance, shade, atmosphere in haze: these are the hallmarks of Lachlan Skipworth’s oeuvre. Everything said concisely, and yet indirectly.The collection of pieces in Chamber Works Vol II remain typical of these attributes: they exist as crafted worlds, evocative and intuitive. But they possess a transformed sense of immediacy, a vibrancy that rewards not only the patient listener, but is written to captivate from the very first note.Even from the cover of the CD, a flush…
Note down 2020 as the year people began humming my music. They usually don’t. This implied that a fundamental change was afoot, so I write this article to examine the recent shifts in my musical ideology. It offers both a chance for me to take stock, and a window into my work in a broader sense.My compositional thinking seems occupied by considerations of balance, both between simultaneous ideas and across the architecture of a complete…
I write here a little about my Piano Trio, and how the traditional shakuhachi piece Daha found its way to prominence in its first movement.A starting point could be noting the similarities between the Latin appropriare (to make one’s own) and the shakuhachi concept of honnin no kyoku, in which we strive to make a piece we learn “totally, in every way perceived and unperceived … one’s very own” (Riley Lee). This would however be…
Like most foreigners, I find Tokyo a place of immense wonder and am constantly marvelling at the way a place of such extremes can function in such an orderly fashion. Temples nestled between skyscrapers set the ancient alongside the modern with a slight feeling of awkward impermanence, as if awaiting the next earthquake. The subway network appears an unfolding labyrinth of intersecting lines on a map, yet the rail system runs like clockwork. Trains seem…
Continue Reading Chaos and Containment – creative inspiration from the vivid music of Japan
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