HCMF + Nieuw Ensemble Composers' Programme hits right notes
"The focus isn't so much on one piece as your whole musical language."
Amsterdam test for Nieuw Ensemble
The four composers taking part in the first HCMF + Nieuw Ensemble Composers' Programme have returned from a second trip to the group's studio in Amsterdam. After an intensive weekend working through their ideas with Nieuw Ensemble, they each now face the task of completing a piece to be premiered by the musicians at HCMF 2009.
"When you hear your ideas played by an ensemble with so much experience and of such good quality, it makes them clear in a way that you're not able to imagine them previously," says Lauren Redhead, one of the four composers selected after a launch workshop at HCMF 2008. "Really experienced players can give you absolutely everything that you've written on the page, and a bit more."
Run in partnership with Nieuw Ensemble and Yorkshire Universities and supported by NFPK and the Musicians' Benevolent Fund, the three-year programme offers professional development opportunities for emerging composers at higher education institutions in the region. Alongside Redhead, who is pursuing a practice-led PhD at University of Leeds, the chosen composers are Jenny Jackson (University of Sheffield), Ben Isaacs (University of Huddersfield) and Dimitris Maronidis (University of York).
The first trip to Amsterdam in February saw the composers get to grips with Nieuw Ensemble's unusual instrumentation. With guitar, mandolin and harp alongside the more traditional strings, woodwind and percussion, the 12-piece ensemble has long been dedicated to building its own repertoire in partnership with composers.
"The whole ensemble sound was the challenge, and also a really exciting part of the project," recalls Redhead. "The first weekend, I spoke to the ensemble about how they musically interact with each other and the different ways that they would respond to notation. The music I then wrote for the second weekend tried to incorporate those ideas."
April's workshop offered the composers opportunities to gain feedback from the players, from artistic director Joël Bons and from Richard Ayres, who teaches at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
"It's really quite an informal environment where you feel able to express your ideas any way you like," Redhead says. "The focus isn't so much on one piece as your whole musical language." The four also observed their counterparts from Nieuw Ensemble's Netherlands programme and attended performances at the Bimhuis and Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ.
Redhead and her three fellow musical travellers will stay in contact with Nieuw Ensemble over the summer as they compose the pieces for November's premieres, helping to maintain the inspirational momentum of the workshops.
"Although I'm happy with some of the things I've written," she concludes, "I now have a lot of ideas for how I could take it further."
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