Music for solo piano, or featuring piano with electronics or digital sound environments. I’ve had the good fortune to write music for several wonderful pianists, and am always interested in writing more — it’s ‘my’ instrument, and I love its range and endless possibilities.
Composed in 1991 for piano, digital sound and live electronics, this piece is about aspects of translation, and makes use of Gaelic psalm singing, speech from a documentary radio programme on translating from Gaelic to English, and what is lost.
A short, theatrical piano solo, composed for the Guildford Festival in 2005, to be played with thumbs only, a baroque suite in miniature based on Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’. The programme notes (to be read at performance) are vital.
Solo piano, 1995. The four pieces which make up Transparent things each explore notions of transparency: the idea of looking through a surface in search of something less tangible, and more resonant. They were inspired by both the above quotation and my long walks on and around Stanage Edge, in the Peak District, Derbyshire (UK).
Solo piano, 2010. The fifth in my series Fuga Interna, this one based in obscure and devious ways on all the suspensions within Bach’s Fugue in B Minor, book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
Composed 2013, for 1-2 instruments and electronics, and also available as a fixed video realisation. It’s a poetic exploration of place, and place making, and makes use of live interactive processing of animation, text and audio.
The piece was originally written for pianist (and physicist) Steven Neugarten, who said ‘why not write a piece about turbulence?’ and got my particular interpretation of the idea, a virtuoso piece that proceeds from bottom to top of the piano.
Composed in 2011, the sixth piece in a series for piano, Fuga Interna, and the first to include a digital part, which also includes a text by myself about listening, learning to play the piano, age and memory.
Composed in 2000 for performance by Philip Mead, one of a series of relatively short works for piano, Fuga Interna, started in 1997.
Solo piano, 2003. No recording just yet for this one yet, sorry. This is one of a continuing series of relatively short works for piano, started in 1997 (and very much still in progress). Each contains brief ‘quotes’ from those that preceded it, but the pieces can be performed in any order and combination, as the […]
Solo piano, 2000. One of a continuing series, each piece inspired by the pianist for whom I wrote the particular piece, and also from my experience of playing Bach’s Fugue in B minor, Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
Solo piano, 1997. This is the first of a continuing series of relatively short works for piano, started in 1997 (and very much still in progress). Each contains brief ‘quotes’ from those that preceded it, but the pieces can be performed in any order and combination, as the performer prefers. All are inspired by the pianist for whom I wrote the particular piece, and also from my experience of playing Bach’s Fugue in B minor, Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier.