Seeing as Edd has done such a fine job in summarizing the weekend?s activities, I will briefly draft a few personal responses to the first Amsterdam events.

Admittedly, I had a somewhat of a crisis before making the trip. It had been many years since I had the chance to write for so many instruments (a trio being the largest ensemble I have written for in the last 3 years!) – having all those sound possibilities at your disposal isn?t as luxurious as one might think!

Additionally, my high regard for the Nieuw Ensemble compounded my anxiety; I felt the pressure of the ?this piece needs to be amazing?-syndrome.

Well, that caused all sorts of problems! Personal drama aside, I eventually did get a few morsels of material scribed, I thought they had potential to be stretched and explored in a workshop.

Satisfyingly, the first day?s workshop was a real success for me. The sounds produced were interesting and the players seemed to be authentically engaged with the material and possible extensions of it. Looking back, I?m also very pleased with how I led the workshop too - quite a miracle considering how anxious I was that week
before!

As Edd has mentioned, Pat and I stayed in that night and furiously produced some material for the next day. Our thoughts were along the lines of: ?if the Nieuw Ensemble is at your disposal, make the most of it!? I think Steph and Edd had focused on this before the workshop, impressively producing considerable amounts of work. I also admired how Pat quickly rendered something strikingly cohesive and assured for Sunday?s session.

I went away from the workshop feeling galvanized. Jöel had been generous to us all in his comments. I was personally heartened and encouraged by what he had said. I have been thinking about the work to be done since the workshop, ideas since then have been multiple and disparate: I?m intrigued to see how things (un)fold. The main thing that I think needs addressing is form: how to enable the evolving material to have multiform applications within the (probably tiny) space that I delineate for the sounds themselves.

Finally, I know Pat and I (perhaps Edd and Steph too?) feel that having now met some of the players that will be playing our music, we feel that there is a connection established. I hope that there is a feeling that we are working together to create something; I?m writing for them now, not blindly to some imagined figure as before the first workshop. The fact that they were also so understanding, open and genuinely enthusiastic is extremely beneficial for any composer willing to take risks and extend themselves; I?m certainly willing to fail whilst attempting!

Johnny Herbert

Well, everything has been finished and sent to Amsterdam.

The work on the piece, now entitled Equivalents, has been important for me this year acting as a counterbalance for the other increasingly less traditional ‘compositional’ work I’ve done this year to complete my Masters. In this respect, it has proved an invaluable experience.

The title, Equivalents, alludes to the controversial series of works by artist Carl Andre. His Equivalents I-VIII series (pictured) consist of the same number of identical bricks arranged in different ways (it’s worth noting that each Equivalent can also, and usually are, shown separately).

Something additionally important for me was that Andre also made a subsequent work, Cuts, (pictured below) which was a ‘negative’ of Equivalents I-VIII.

In short, these two works, both individually and conjointly, were very appealing to me. It’s becoming increasingly common that visual art is the impetus for me to create something, culminating in me actually regarding it as unnecessary to limit myself to activities specifically ‘composerly’ in medium. Taking a pointer from the first (and my favourite) generation of conceptual artists, I believe the idea to be the most essential thing for a piece for work - the medium I then choose to render it is of secondary concern.

In my work, this doesn’t mean that the idea is something concrete that can be cogently intimated to someone prior to completion of the work. Calibrating with artist Joseph Kosuth, if I’m asked about work I’m currently involved with, I’m likely to be fairly resistant (not to say incompetent!) in disclosing specifics as this instigates a process of self-sloganizing and ‘canning’ of a work before it has even been completed – hence my timidity in writing many blog entries here!

It’s also worth adding that I haven’t written any of this information in the programme note for the piece; I don’t see the role of the programme note as being some instantaneous ‘way in’ for a majority of audience members reading it. Resultantly, my recent programme notes can seem rather abstract, however, perhaps that’s only because they’re in written language, a medium most consider to be an exemplar of clarity.

The final hurdle will be the rehearsals and the performance, I’ll most likely close my eyes for the latter, the idea of a room full of people listening to my humble offering absolutely..!!…well, lets just say I imagine that I will wish to be somewhere else!

Thanks in advance to the Nieuw Ensemble, Joël Bons and the profound Pat Allison (whose piece I very much look forward to hearing) – Equivalents is dedicated to them. I’d also like to thanks Robbert van Steijn, Heidi Johnson, Stef and Ed for their help, support and company during the whole project.