HELLAWELL
All About Snoob for Bassoon (or Contrabasson)
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version For perusal only
PIERS
HELLAWELL
All About Snoob
for Bassoon (or Contrabassoon)
ISSUU Version
PROGRAMME NOTE
For perusal only
All About Snoob was written for Jeremy Crump as the first in the Lockdown Commissioning Triangles series for CoMA (Contemporary Music for All) during the spring of 2020. Chris Shurety and I devised the idea of bringing short solo pieces for keen amateurs into being, to overcome the virus-induced national isolation of that time, which had put an end to live concert activity. The piece was premiered by Jeremy Crump on Youtube in June 2020.
All About Snoob is a character piece. Snoob is a louche character – a wit, of some learning, a flâneur who is now somewhat down at heel – the type who seems to know everybody, without having any obvious profession. Everyone runs into Snoob, but no one knows much of Snoob’s history… Such characters add colour to the tapestry of other lives but seem to lack any clear framework to their own; in chance encounters they point out things we had not thought of, even things we wished we had not thought of – but then they’re gone, as if only to exist for that gad-fly purpose – stinging us into seeing things through another’s imagination. Such characters leave much of what they feel hidden away; maybe they only exist at all in our own consciousness. So this is all about Snoob.
Piers Hellawell, 2020
ISSUU Version For perusal only
ISSUU Version For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
ISSUU Version
For perusal only
Piers Hellawell
Piers Hellawell (b. 1956) has worked with leading artists such as the LSO, Schubert Ensemble, Dame Evelyn Glennie and the Hilliard Ensemble, who toured his Hilliard Songbook pieces worldwide. Orchestral works include Cors de chasse (for Håkan Hardenberger, Jonas Bylund and the Philharmonia Orchestra) and the BBC commission Dogs and Wolves (2006), while Syzygy was premiered in 2013 by the Stockholm Chamber Brass/Swedish Chamber Orchestra. 2016 saw Hellawell’s Wild Flow commissioned for the BBC Proms, and a UK tour of Up by the Roots – a collaboration with poet Sinéad Morrissey – as well as a composer feature at Detroit’s Great Lakes Festival. Hellawell has been Professor of Composition at Queen’s University of Belfast since 2002, and has spoken widely on issues of music and cultural ownership as Gresham Professor of Music in London, 2000–2003.
Piers Hellawell (*1956) hat mit vielen namhaften Künstlern und Ensembles zusammengearbeitet, u.a. mit dem London Symphony Orchestra, dem Schubert Ensemble, Evelyn Glennie und dem Hilliard Ensemble, das seinem Hilliard Songbook zu internationaler Bekanntheit verhalf. Zu Hellawells Orchesterwerken zählen Cors de chasse (für Håkan Hardenberger, Jonas Bylund und das Philharmonia Orchestra), das BBC-Auftragswerk Dogs and Wolves (2006) sowie Syzygy, das 2013 von Stockholm Chamber Brass und dem Swedish Chamber Orchestra uraufgeführt wurde. 2016 entstanden Wild Flow für die BBC Proms sowie Up by the Roots – ein Gemeinschaftsprojekt mit der Dichterin Sinéad Morrissey, das bei Konzerten in ganz Großbritannien und Nordirland zur Aufführung kam. Im gleichen Jahr bildete sein Schaffen einen Schwerpunkt des Great Lakes Festival in Detroit. Hellawell ist seit 2002 Professor an der Queen’s University in Belfast. Von 2000 bis 2003 hatte er die Londoner Gresham-Professur für Musik inne und setzte sich bei seinen Vorträgen mit Fragen des kulturellen Eigentums in der Musik auseinander.