Compositions

If you would be interested in hiring any of my pieces for performance please contact me through the Contact page.  Perusal scores can be sent.

————————-

Please note that there are low-resolution pdf examples of each composition – and that the examples do not necessarily contain adjacent pages.
 
For sound samples of most pieces please see the Sales page.
 
  • Speechless (2008)

    A cantata for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. The three movements are based on three poems by my mother, Beth Fender – Heaven, Impressions in Sand, and Speechless.
     
    Forces: mezzo-soprano solo, 2222 2200, timps + 1 (bd, sd, tam tam, susp cym), strings
     
  • Canzona I (2008)

    Written to accompany Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony. In that piece the trombones and bassoons have next to nothing to play, so I wanted to make them feel like it was worth turning up for the evening! The basis is a canzona-like tune of my own. I subsequently discovered resemblances with Charles Ives ‘The Unanswered Question’, a piece which I’m not aware of having heard before composing this piece … interesting!
     
    Forces: 4*04*2 4020, strings (vla + cb only)
     
  • All for Love (2009)

    I was looking for pieces to put in a concert of music combining a live orchestra with electronics. Lots of interesting but very complex music. I was keen to do John Adams’ Christian Zeal and Activity but the hire cost seemed outrageous for such a short piece … so I decided to write something in a similar vein. It’s based on a Christmas Carol … but I’m not telling you which!
     
    Forces: tenor saxophone solo, strings, pre-recorded tape
     
  • Elegy for cello and orchestra (2011)

    Written after watching the disaster movie ‘The Day after Tomorrow’. So not a terribly cheerful piece! Dedicated to the people of Japan after March 2011.
     
    Forces: cello solo, 22*22 2231, 2 perc (glock, sd, tam tam, susp cym), strings
     
  • Canzona II (2011)

    A reworking of Canzona I for the October 2011 recording. Because the original was written to go with Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony this has both been a revision of the music (I’ve composed completely new string parts) and of the instrumentation. Again, it is a ‘layered’ piece of music: the strings and wind are doing quite different things at the same time.
     
    Forces: 2*222 2020, strings
     
  • Chiaroscuro (2011)

    A concert overture with a catchy if slightly banal sounding tune (the banality is intentional, honest!). The tune, however, metamophoses into something quite sinister and ‘in your face’. A piece, as they say, of two halves. I composed the tune on George Lloyd’s piano in Cumbria in September 2011.
     
    Forces: 2*222 2231, timps + 1 (bd, woodblock, tam tam, pedal bass & snare & hi-hat), strings