News

Posted on 24 May 2018

My new String Quartet is being premiered by the Arditti Quartet this Tuesday 29 May, in a special concert at London's newly reopened Purcell Room in memory of Leo Hepner. Written in five movements, it features unusual tunings for half the instruments – the 2nd violin has all its strings tuned down a semitone, the viola has its strings tuned down a tone. Leo...

Posted on 11 May 2018

My piece Codex (Homage to Serafini), premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2013, will receive a performance by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at London's Cadogan Hall in June 2019, conducted by Cristian Măcelaru. The performance is supported by the PRS for Music Foundation's Resonate scheme, which supports repeat performances of British orchestral works. The piece was inspired by Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus, a beautiful and...

Posted on 21 Apr 2018

I've just spent four lovely days at Snape Maltings with a fantastic team of singers and players, rehearsing and showing around half an hour of the (as yet untitled) opera that playwright Alice Birch and I have been working on with the help of a Jerwood Opera Writing Fellowship. The cast (soprano Anna Dennis, baritone Felix Kemp, mezzo soprano Lucy Goddard and tenor Nathan Vale)...

Posted on 10 Apr 2018

An update on the opera that playwright Alice Birch and I have been working on with the help of a Jerwood Opera Writing Fellowship from Snape Maltings: We're spending some time in Snape in April rehearsing around 25 minutes of music from the (as yet untitled opera), with a fantastic team of singers (soprano Anna Dennis, baritone Alexander Robin Baker, mezzo soprano Lucy Goddard and tenor...

Posted on 06 Feb 2018

The Radio Filharmonisch Orkest will give the Dutch premiere of Sonnet Machine in a concert at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw in June as part of the Holland Festival. The concert will be conducted by Martyn Brabbins, and will focus on the music of George Benjamin (his own Sometime Voices, Dance Figures and his arrangement of Bach's Canon & Fugue from the Art of Fugue), and will also...

Posted on 25 Jan 2018

BBC Radio 3's 'Hear and Now' broadcast a recording of Psappha performing Two Games and a Nocturne at Manchester's New Music North West Festival from November. Also in the broadcast are orchestral pieces by Laura Bowler, Larry Goves, Daniel Kidane, Mario Duarte and Grace-Evangeline Mason, and Psappha performing David Horne's Resonating Instruments. You can listen to the recording worldwide on iPlayer for 30 days:[vc_row][vc_column width='3/12'][/vc_column][vc_column width='6/12'] [image_with_text_over width='one_half' image='https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/640x360/p05nqvn1.jpg' title='Hear and...

Posted on 06 Jan 2018

The London Sinfonietta are 50 years old in 2018, having given their first concert on January 24 1968. They're celebrating this anniversary with a concert at the Royal Festival Hall featuring Harrison Birtwistle's The Message, Stravinsky's Octet, Ligeti's Chamber Concerto, a new work by Samantha Fernando and Hans Abrahamsen's Left, alone.  The concert will end with a set of 14 concertante variations on a Purcell Hornpipe, by 14 different...

Posted on 08 Sep 2017

I'm delighted to have been appointed Visiting Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts at Trinity College Cambridge. The two-year post allows an artist to pursue their creative work and play a part in the life of the college. Previous composers who have held the post include Judith Weir, Philip Grange, Thomas Adès and Richard Causton. I'm also giving a talk about my...

Posted on 08 Aug 2017

Over this coming year, I'll be the composition mentor for the talented young composers on the Britten Sinfonia Academy's 'Composer Lab', and will also be writing a piece for the (equally talented!) academy players to perform – a set of orchestrations of keyboard works by Schumann from his 6 Études In Kanonischer Form Op. 56 and his 7 Klavierstücke In Fughettenform Op....