News

 

I am working for the first time with director Ellie Heydon and producer Kevin Forde on a new play by playwright David Prosser. This production tells the story of Ludwig Guttmann, the German Jew who working in the spinal injuries ward at Stoke Mandeville Hospital during the second world war, and went on to establish what would become the Paralympic games. Tickets available here

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I am once again working with Dirty Rascals on their highly inventive production of Kafka's A Hunger Artist. This show is being performed at the Wandsworth Arts Fringe festival 2017.

Once again I am working with the brilliant Collide Theatre group to bring a production of Tejas Verdes, by the Chilean playwright Fermin Cabal. This play features a number of monologues dealing with the systematic torture and murder committed under General Pinochet's brutal dictatorship in Chile.

Our second themed concert, Metallurgy occurred on the 10th of March, at Iklectik art studios, in Waterloo, featuring solo bassist and singer Nina Harries, alongside works by myself, Chris Schlecte-Bond and Jonathan Dodd. Extracts of my piece, Mechanations, will be available on the music page shortly.

After our performance at Nonclassical last month, the new music ensemble Echoshed were invited to perform two 20-minute sets at Art Junction, a periodical arts event curated by Sergio Giro at The Meeting Room in Neal's Yard, Covent Garden.

After a very successful premiere concert in December, the new music ensemble Echoshed (formed by myself and fellow composer and RCL alumnus Chris Schlechte-Bond) were invited to perform SEIKILOS at the Nonclassical Battle of the Bands 2017. Sadly, we did not win but received some particularly strong feedback from the judges. The winner, Heidi Heidelberg, was a particularly strong entrant and her victory was well deserved.

A new piece of mine, a text-score SEIKILOS (which was premiered at Primal Soup, an Echoshed concert earlier this month) now has a recording availble to listen to. This recording was taken during one of the rehearsals. The piece, SEIKILOS, is based on the Seikilos epitaph, the oldest known human composition. This makes SEIKILOS a musical collaboration spanning the greatest possible time period between two composers. The original composer, Seikilos, is thought to have lived between 200BC and 100AD. It is available to listen to here, or on the Music page.

After many months of deliberation and planning, myself and fellow composer and RCL alumnus Chris Schlechte-Bond have formed a contempoary music collective by the name of Echoshed. Our first concert is called Primal Soup and it is on the 2nd of December at By Other Means, an art gallery in North London - and if that isn't exciting enough, this event is featuring a liquid light display by Sam Hoppen (Lighting designer, Inferno) and it is free! This concert will feature a piece of mine, SEIKILOS, of which a recording will soon be available, alongside electroacoustic works of both mine and Chris', works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Giacinto Scelsi and John Cage. We are planning many more free concerts in 2017!

I have worked again with Louise Wadsworth (with whom I adapted an extract from Janacek's opera Jenufa into a highly experimental performance piece at the Wandsworth Fringe earlier this year), this time on creating an electroacoustic score for her physical theatre piece to accompany a sculpture at the Bloomsbury Festival, in Senate House. The sculpture is Tree of Language, and the piece (performed on the 22nd of October, 3PM, at Senate House) explores the idea of language loss and the connection between language and cultural knowledge. To accompany this, I constructed a piece of music from recordings of different people speaking in their native tongues, manipulated and transformed into some weird vocalisational oddities. This piece is available to listen to here, or on the music page.

Once again I'm working with Vince Ade and Fox & Chips productions, this time on an immersive production of Hamlet at the Pack and Carriage, in Camden. This will be performed every Monday and Tuesday between Oct 17th and December 13th. Tickets available here! The setting, this time, is a psychedelic drug-haze in the early 70s!

I'm super psyched to announce that I succeeded in making it to the final shortlist of top 10 composers for the Old Vic's Old Vic 12 compettion! Of over 1,400 total applications, I made it through to the final round and was interviewed by the great Gary Yershon. Sadly I did not win, but the experience was a great one and to have made it this far gives me access to a number of exclusive events hosted by The Old Vic.

I worked again with directors Roberto Cortese (Comedy of Errors co-director) and Polly Creed, and producer Hayley Russell (Bacchae producer) on composing for a creative new theatrical interpretation of Inferno by Dante Alighieri, which ran for three weeks this month at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. An extract of cues is available to listen to here or on the music page. I also contributed some music towards Wiebke Green's (Comedy of Errors director) production of Moliere's School for Wives.

The documentary which I had scored, Life at a Snail's Pace by Alex Gaulupeau was screened this month as part of the Hot Docs Film Festival, in Toronto. Additionally, this particular film received the BUFVC's Learning on Screen Student Production Documentary Award.

Life at a Snail's Pace - Trailer from Alexandra Gaulupeau on Vimeo.

Collide Theatre's next production, an immersive, disturbing portrayal of Heiner Müller's Hamletmachine, will be performed this Summer at Ugly Duck's "The Garage" on Tanner Street, near London Bridge, on the 16th and 17th of July. More details can be found on their Crowdfunder page or their website.

 

This month I spent 2 weeks with a good friend and prolific composer Sami El-Enany, recording material for a collaborative experimental record in Leipzig, along a theme of abandonment and ruin. We spent a lot of time in abandoned factories and buildings, using them as recording spaces and discovering discarded objects to use as sound sources. This will be the raw material from which we will collaboratively construct a number of pieces over the coming months.

I worked with director Polly Cohen this month on scoring her production of Rites, a part-verbatim performance dealing with the issues of FGM, originally commissioned by the National Theatre os Scotland. Rites was performed on the 7th of March to a sold-out RADA Studios.

I have been working with director Wiebke Green on scoring her production of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, which ran for three nights at the Shaw Theatre in London between the 18th and 20th of February. This production was in association with the UCL Drama Society.

Last month, I spent a week with two friends of mine in Siena, Italy. During my time there I took field recordings of different aspects of the town at different stages of day and night. On my return, from these recordings I constructed an ambient noise record, Night Music, designed to invoke the unique ambiance of particular phases of night in the town. Hear it below:

 

The documentary which I had scored, Life at a Snail's Pace by Alex Gaulupeau was screened this week as part of the London Short Film Festival, at the Hackney Picturehouse in London. Extracts of my score can be heard on the music page - all of which was constructed from recordings made using a snail-shell.

I was asked by director Emily Louizou and writer Eleanor Tindall to score their production of Tindall's play Gingerbread, which was premiered as part of the Greek Theatre series at the Almeida Theatre. Some extracts of this can be heard here. My score is based on transcriptions of birdsong - the theme of birds birdsong is a prominent symbol in the play.

I have now completed my studies at the Royal College of Music on their Composition for Screen course, with distinction. I was also lucky enough to be awarded the Joseph Horovitz Prize in Composition for Screen, for outstanding achievement in my final portfolio.

I have completed over an hour of experimental noise/drone music for a promenade setting of Sarah Kane's final play, 4.48 Psychosis (directed by Emily Louizou) in the Crypt Gallery, a crypt in Euston. Eight shows were performed and a selection of the music will be available to listen to here.

I have completed over 40 minutes of music for an intimate production of Othello (directed by Victor Ade) in the Pack and Carriage, a pub in Camden. Two shows were performed and a small selection of the music is available to listen to on the Music page, or by clicking here.

Myself and sound designer James Melling have won the Sunday Times Judges' commendation for 'Best Sound and Music Design' for our work on Bacchae at the National Student Drama Festival this year.

I recently had a String Trio premiered at Holy Trinity Church in South Kensington, as part of a composers' concert of new string music. There is a recording available to listen to here. The performers were Romana Waska, James Douglas, and Idlir Shyti.

The first run of shows of the UCL Classical Drama Society's production of Bacchae (directed by Emily Louizou, produced by Hayley Russell) completed this month at the Bloomsbury Theatre. The production contained over an hour of my original music, much of which was performed live on stage, in costume! So far the show has received very positive reviews. The production will go to Greece in April, and the British Museum in the Summer, and has been entered into the National Student Drama Festival. The trailer for the play is available to view below:

 

This year, I was one of the 12 shortlisted entries to the European Talent competition at Soundtrack Cologne. My entry was screened at the festival in Cologne, which I attended with the Royal College of Music Composition for Screen faculty. The score I wrote for this is available to listen to here. This score was made from my own violin and viola recordings.

A promotional single for the upcoming horror video-game Faceless (for which I am scoring the soundtrack) has now been released and is available to purchase through Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and many other digital distribution platforms. The track serves as the Main Menu music for the game, featuring vocals by Jemma Cash, and all strings by me.

A new track is now available to listen to: The Passion. This piece was written and recorded in just 7 days as part of the Advanced Practical Skills project at the Royal College of Music.

I am pleased to announce that I have been brought on to the Faceless development team, in the production of a free-to-play video-game based on the Slenderman mythos. It has been greenlit on Steam, and more information can be found on the Steam page. None of the current trailers or promotional material contain my music, but all future updates from Faceless will.

My newest score, and my first graphic score, has recently been completed. It was created as part of London Sinfonietta's "RSVP" call for scores that fit on a postcard.

Celtic folk-metal project Oakenshield asked me to record session fiddles for their latest album - Legacy, which is released under the Einheit Produktionen record label, to much critical acclaim. Much of the album is available to listen to on Youtube, below you can find the song Earl Thorfinn.