Alumni Recital with the epoch ensemble - 25 January 2024 - Event Programme

International Concert Series 2023-2024

ALUMNI RECITAL: THE EPOCH ENSEMBLE EVENT PROGRAMME

JANUARY 25, 2024 ROYALHOLLOWAY.AC.UK/MUSIC

Department of Music

School of Performing & Digital Arts

International Concert Series 2023-24

OUR 2023-24 SEASON We are pleased to welcome you to our 2023-24 International Concert Series at Royal Holloway.

We, at the Department of Music, cannot wait to showcase the varied talent of our students and staff, but also bringing internationally renowned musicians to the College. For 2023-24, we are back and better than ever with more student and staff opportunities through the creation of 'The Platform', an open opportunity for the community at the Department of Music to share with you what makes us so special. Alongside our popular Midweek Music and Pocket Concert Series, we are excited to continue our special partnerships with the Young Classical Artists Trust and BBC New Generation Artists and continue our alumni recital series by bringing back the epoch ensemble. We are pleased to also bring a wealth of international artists to our series, including pianists Pina Napolitano, Mary Dullea, Sholto Kynoch, Alexander Soares, and Joseph Havlat, violinist Darragh Morgan, guitarist Laura Snowden, clarinettist Jonathan Leibovitz, 1|P a g e

sitarist James Pusey, mezzosoprano Helen Charlston, jazz group Solstice, and the London Mozart Players. 2023 also marks the final season for our quartet-in-residence, the Tippett Quartet, as we say farewell to this stellar group with their final concert at Royal Holloway.

All in all, this season is representative of the world-class talent our community at the Department of Music has fostered as we showcase our students and the range of music performance we programme and encourage; from jazz to world music, orchestral performance to solo piano, as well as presenting performers from the international stage. We look forward to welcoming you to our series this year.

Dr Nathan James Dearden Music Performance Manager & Curator of the International Concert Series

International Concert Series 2023-24

Alumni Recital with the Epoch Ensemble International Concert Series 2023-24

Thursday, 25 January 2024 Picture Gallery, Founder’s Building with

Epoch Ensemble Gavin Stewart Flute Carwyn Jones Cello Oli Cuttriss Piano

EVENT PROGRAMME Elisenda Fábregas (b. 1955) Voices of the Rainforest Anton Webern (1883 - 1945) Three Little Pieces, Op. 11 Peter Eötvös (b. 1944) PSY -INTERVAL-

Estimated finish time: 9.00pm There will be a short interval during this evening’s performance.

Please no flash photography or visual/audio recording throughout the event.

For news about our future events, please visit royalholloway.ac.uk/music/events

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Carwyn Jones (b. 1995) Light Through Golden Frames Edwin Roxburgh (b. 1937) Stardrift Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961) Trio No. 2

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PROGRAMME NOTES Elisenda Fábregas (b. 1955) Voices of the Rainforest Elisenda Fábregas is a SpanishAmerican pianist and composer who made her piano debut at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1983, following her studies at Juilliard and the Conservatory of Barcelona. Her performance experience propelled her into composition and over her career has composed over 40 works, for a variety of solo, chamber, vocal and orchestral instruments. She is currently the resident composer for the Palau de la Musica Catalana (Barcelona) for the 2023-24 season.

Voices of the Rainforest is a more recent composition by Fábregas and was written for the Meininger-Trio (comprising of Alto Flute, Cello and Piano) in 2008. Inspired by Fábregas’ fascination with nature and the sounds of the Papau New Guinea Rainforest, the composition is in five parts, with each part reflecting a different moment of the day in the rainforest as a rainstorm passes. These different movements are called Awakening, Sago Gatherers, Evening Rainstorm, Voices of ‘inside’ Night and Night Spirits.

The instruments bring to life the cacophonous rainforest noise, highlighting specific animals, such as 3|P a g e

the flute reflecting the birdsong, most significantly in Awakening and the solo cello at the beginning of Sago Gatherers reflecting the emergence of the Kaluli women coming to collect crops. New melodic ideas are introduced in each movement, such as the fast scalic passages in the piano reflecting rainfall in Evening Rainstorm, to reflect the change in surroundings as the day passes, however despite the different creatures and noises the instruments mimic, there is a sense of unity amongst all three, creating a sound that is both harmonious and complex.

Anton Webern (1883 - 1945) Three Little Pieces, Op. 11 Known for his radical use of twelvetone techniques and atonal writing, Anton Webern rose to prominence as a composer, conductor, vocal coach and choirmaster following an unhappy career as a theatre director. Following this career change, a noticeable change in mood appeared in Webern’s compositions, with a more confident feel becoming clear in his works from the 1920s onwards. Having been a private pupil of the great composer Arnold Schoenberg from his early twenties, Webern soon started to discover different ways he could express himself musically, which eventually lead to his discovery of atonality and the development of his own distinct musical style.

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Although they were only debuted in 1924, Three Little Pieces (or Drei Kleine Stücke) was written in 1914 just prior to the outbreak of the first World War. With a total running time of around two and a half minutes, this collection of works is nonetheless masterfully developed in its compactness. Even the last of the three pieces, which is only eleven bars in length, contains an exposition, development and recapitulation.

The collection of pieces is the most fragmented in nature that Webern ever composed – nothing is repeated, and the notes of the first few bars of span over three octaves.

Although remarkably short, within the first piece the cellist is required to play a number of techniques such as pizzicato, muted notes and glissandos.

As well as this, the first beats of the bars in this first piece are often either left silent or tied with notes played from the previous bars. This directly goes against the time signature of the piece, which directly contrasts with the traditional dance rhythm given to the piece. This strange disconnect created by giving the stronger emphasis on the second beats of the bars is an indication of Webern’s radical composing style – showing how he favoured traditional features such as the classical dance rhythm whilst also marrying them with newer, more bizarre features

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Peter Eötvös (b. 1944) PSY Eötvös began his compositional career at a young age, being noticed in Hungary for the first time after winning a composition competition at the age of eleven. Then, at fourteen, he was commissioned to start improvising piano and organ music to accompany film projections. This then led to his composition of music for several films and opened doors for him to pursue his career in conducting and orchestral composition.

Written in 1996, PSY is a chamber music composition which has taken several forms of instrumentation throughout the history of its performance. PSY is a fragment of another larger orchestral work by Eötvös, Psychokosmos (1993), which was then adapted for a smaller group of instruments. Many of Eötvös’ compositions were inspired by space and the cosmos due to his fascination with Yuri Gagarin – the first human to orbit earth in a space capsule. For the then-seventeen-year-old Eötvös, this opened his eyes to the vastness of the universe, and made earth seem as if it was limitless.

Present throughout the piece is a dark and almost eerie tone created by repeated low drone notes. The piece also makes use of silence, implementing rests to let the notes settle in the air before moving on. This helps to aid the unsettling feel of the piece. The sudden crescendos and dynamic changes which then break

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through this silence are used to represent the passing of comets. The piece is also adorned with tremolos and trills to simulate the constant movement within the cosmos. These elements combined create an ethereal, spacious mood to the piece which help reflect the idea of how vast the cosmos is, and the mystery that space holds.

Carwyn Jones (b. 1995) Light Through Golden Frames Light Through Golden Frames is a piece based on the accumulative experience of walking through an art gallery, specifically the Picture Gallery at Royal Holloway. It aims to reflect the way in which - when viewing a collection of artworks - we relate each new work to all we have seen previously. Much like when learning new information, where the human brain aims to make connections between newly learned facts to existing related information we already know.

The piece is based on four paintings in the Picture Gallery at Royal Holloway: 'The Opium Stall’ by W. J. Muller, 'The Two Princes' by J. E. Millais, 'Carthillon Cliffs' by J. Brett, and 'Abbeville' by Jules Noel. Coupled with the original frames that have hung in Royal Holloway's Picture Gallery since its opening, the four chosen paintings influence the title of the piece. The four paintings use light (and conversely: darkness) in very different 5|P a g e

ways, which shapes the four different sections of the piece.

The recorded element of the piece is the representation of memory; after each section is finished, the prerecorded music will continue the material of all previous sections. The recorded element is not a full texture, and the material is played sparsely, so that the main focus of the musical will always be the live Piano.

Programme note by Carwyn Jones

Edwin Roxburgh (b. 1937) Stardrift “Like Holst, I have from childhood found astronomy an absorbing preoccupation, not only for its own sake, but also as a therapeutic contrast to the world in which we live. I see the thread that links space research to the technology of electro-acoustic music as a creative equation, which is explored in my large orchestral works such as Saturn and smaller instrumental works such as Stardrift.

This piece was commissioned by the British Flute Society as the competition test piece for the 1992 International Flute Convention in London, which required a representation of as many expressive and technical characteristics of the flute as possible.

The title is an astronomical term that describes the drift of the planets against the fixed stars. I considered this an appealing and paradoxical notion for the structure of a piece for a solo instrument. From the stillness of

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the opening the music gathers increasing density, but sustains the superimposition of the organic intervals that relate to the whole piece. It is dedicated to Susan Milan, who instigated the commission.”

Programme note by Edwin Roxburgh

Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961) Trio No. 2 With a style of composition that combines traditional ideas of tonality with more adventurous harmonic elements, Lowell Liebermann has composed dozens of notable works over his years as a composer for orchestra, ballet and opera. Having had both his compositional and performative debut at Carnegie Hall at the age of only sixteen, Liebermann went on to study at Juilliard School of Music, where he served as the assistant director for Nassau Lyric Opera Company whilst still an undergraduate.

Trio No. 2, written for flute, cello and piano, was originally premiered in 2004

by Trio Fedele. The trio consists of a singular, uninterrupted movement which makes use of close ensemble work as well as solo and duo sections.

Throughout the piece the instruments work together to create a wall of sound, anchored by the steady repeated motifs of the piano which allow for the flute and cello to sing above it in dancelike melodies. Melodic echoing is heard between the piano and cello whilst the flute performs solo passages, and the 6|P a g e

use of shorter note lengths and ascending and descending scalic passages create a continuous sense of movement in the piece. Towards the end of the trio there is more of a sense of the three instruments working in unison at a steadier pace to bring the piece to a close.

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EVENT PERFORMERS Gavin Stewart specialises in the performance of contemporary repertoire and has appeared as a guest artist at national and international festivals, conventions, and residencies. He has worked with established ensembles including Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and the International Contemporary Ensemble and currently plays with epoch ensemble and the newly formed Pierrot ensemble, Mondays Child. He plays a Kingma System C flute which formed the basis of his PhD where he generated new music for this flute and electronics using the techniques and timbres of the Japanese Shakuhachi. Gavin champions accessibility in the arts and arts education with his positions as senior manager at HMDT Music and Chair of the British Flute Society.

During his BMus and MMus at Royal Holloway, Carwyn Jones specialised in composition and studied 'Cello with Ben Davies, taking a keen interest in contemporary performance. He was able to work with Steven Isserlis in a masterclass 7|P a g e

on the Bach 'Cello Suites, perform Shostakovich's first 'Cello Concerto with the Symphony Orchestra, and perform at prestigious events such as the Magna Carta 800th anniversary celebrations.

It led to him enrolling with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group's NEXT programme for young artists; allowing him the opportunity to study with Ulrich Heinen, the ensemble's principal 'Cellist and co-founder. In recent years, Carwyn has become the Education Manager and 'Cello specialist at London based luthier: Stringers.

Hailing from Burgess Hill, Oli Cuttriss began playing the piano at the age of nine, alongside the oboe and electric guitar. A versatile musician and venerable sightreader, he has won numerous local competitions, performed in masterclasses with Danny Driver, Lindsay Garritson and the late Peter Katin, for an original musical at the Edinburgh Fringe and in countless other functions involving the keyboard. He graduated from Royal Holloway in 2016 with the Alice Dougherty Chaplin Prize for Performance before going on to work at Bishopsgate School and St George’s School, Windsor Castle until 2019. More recently, with the

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unexpected aid of the Covid lockdown, he completed a livestreamed 24-hour piano recital in a bid to financially support a Performance Masters degree at the Royal College of Music, which he completed in 2021 with Distinction.

He currently works as a sought-after freelancer in London, professionally accompanying at his alma maters.

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OUR PROGRAMME NOTES The notes created for this event programme have been written by a team of students at the Department of Music, as part of the Concert Management & Artist Personnel Programme (where listed).

This is a professional development initiative run by the Concert Office where students are able to experience first-hand what goes on behind-thescenes, who organises the publicity for an event, to even how to coordinate and manage a rehearsal schedule. All members of the programme are mentored by the College's Performance Manager, Nathan James Dearden, and receive training from industry specialists.

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