As we enter into this last phase of rehearsing the four new pieces for our premiere at 14:00 in the Town Hall, I have been thinking about the journey that the four ECPDP composers have taken with Ensemble 10/10.

It is rare for composers to be given the opportunity to truly experiment with a large ensemble. Beginning in March of this year, we were given that chance. All four of us were allowed to try out sketches that used techniques and ideas that we might have been wary of using if we were in the typical situation of having only one or two rehearsals before an imminent concert. The ensemble made their best effort to realise everyone's sketches and gave honest and creative feedback in two workshops separated by several months. This process allowed each composer to stretch him/herself in new ways.

In the end, we have arrived at four distinct pieces for the same ensemble that emphasize very different aspects of the instrumental possibilities. Some of the pieces ask the ensemble to blend. Others aim for maximal instrumental differentiation. All of the works are in very different styles, but I think that, despite our great aesthetic differences, all four composers have benefited immensely from going through the rehearsal process with each other. Personally, I have found the process tremendously inspiring for my work going forward. I am very excited to hear the final products of our work with Ensemble 10/10 premiered tomorrow.

 Elizabeth A Kelly ECPDP Composer working with Ensemble 10/10

The European Composers' Professional Development Programme enabled twelve composers to develop compositions with one of three different international ensembles. I was fortunate to be one of four composers working with the Nieuw Ensemble in Amsterdam. Having heard about funding cuts in the Netherlands before attending the second and final workshop, I wondered if there might be an air of resignation. This was not the case. We were treated to another intense experience in which the music was all that mattered. We worked hard and challenged one another, and spoke of the performance in Huddersfield with excitement and anticipation.   

The players did not waste a second of our time. We arrived early, had coffee, chatted for a while, and then worked without interruption. Sometimes a long discussion would follow a point of contention. If Joel, the ensemble director, felt that we might gain something valuable he gave the discussion space, and demanded concrete examples if points made by players or composers seemed too general to be of use.  

Until this year, I have had little experience of developing material in a workshop with a contemporary music ensemble. In the first workshop I was reluctant to present the sketches that were not typical of my style. Even though these were the sketches I was most curious about, I kept putting them off until the last available opportunity to hear them. That was the turning point. In the second workshop I began to feel less self-conscious - it was about the music, and how we could collectively make the ideas work, or improve on them. Realising that narrative and an association with the visual are defining features of my piece, I tried to communicate some of my ideas verbally - asking the players to characterize the musical material in certain ways, and describing their respective ‘roles' within these narratives. They responded well, and I could hear the music beginning to come to life.

The four of us - Andrea, Helen, Maurizio and I work in such different ways. I'm stunned by the clarity with which my fellow composers hear their respective sound worlds. I soak up information. How could the pieces end up being so different, when the ensemble has such a distinctive sound? I start thinking about the hcmf// performance and become a little nervous. 

My musical ideas are becoming less ‘approximate'. I'm beginning to appreciate the value in working in detail from the outset, and this is opening up new musical possibilities for me. The players were amused and a little bewildered by my constant shifting of entire sections of music up and down octaves and by my last minute re-orchestrating on scraps of manuscript. I like the conductor's take on this - ‘your music is imaginative but your orchestration is a bit random...that's just inexperience. Don't worry so much about that'. Of course, I did worry, and have since worked tirelessly on the piece in the hope to put that right.  I hope I managed it. I'll find out - a week from now.

 Jonathan Brigg - ECPDP Composer working with the Nieuw Ensemble

Regular readers will know that we're taking a keen interest in Ingo J. Biermann's new documentary about our Composer in Residence, Maja S K Ratkje.

He's going to join the pre-concert talk with Maja on 18 November and screen excerpts of his film, and a further glimpse of what it will look like is provided by this lovely new trailer: