David Bruce - Composer

Miles for Music

Presteigne is a charming village just over the border from England in mid-Wales. I was invited there this year by festival director George Vass, for the premiere of my Gigue, a little work with a lot of notes, for harpist Sally Pryce and flautist Adam Walker, who did a great job with a piece which is much harder to play than I realised! (I intend to make a few revisions)

The festival seems to be thriving with almost every concert packed out, even when it's in a tiny church far from the beaten track, and I had the pleaure of meeting several of the other featured composers, including Michael Berkeley, David Matthews and fellow Northerner Joe Duddell.

5 mins of music, 10 hours of driving - but it was worth it!

Dances for Oskar in the Lake District

Above is my son Oskar listening to the string quartet that bears his name. He enjoyed it, but then, as you can see from the picture, he was in an especially good mood! The Heath Quartet gave an excellent first performance at Kendal Town Hall during the Lake District Summer Music Festival yesterday. I decided not to bring the work's dedicatee along to the concert for fear of disruption. But I can officially say that during part of the especially 'bouncy' second movement he definitely danced a little...

and here's the quartet and me receiving a little light thanks from the generous audience

I'm astonished and delighted that after much struggling I've written a piece for string quartet that I'm happy with, and shows I think a reasonable competence in writing for the instruments. I've decided henceforth I can officially call myself a real composer.

Angela from Push! at Tete a Tete Festival

Louise Mott will be reprising her role as Angela from Push! as part of Tete a Tete's Opera Festival over the coming days. Louise and other performers will be performing 'Lite Bites' - operatic excerpts of various kinds at assorted venues in the Hammersmith area throughout the festival. The festival itself is the usual fantastic mix of shows from the 'operatic fringe' (and some not so fringe) and is a must for anyone serious about their new opera.

Lagerphones and laments

It's nice when life and art interact and feel like they are all part of one larger picture. I first met Michael Ward-Bergeman at the Carnegie Hall workshops for Piosenki back in 2006. He introduced me to the lagerphone and later I introduced him to the famous laments or 'Treny' of Polish poet Kochanowski (I even made a post about it here)

I built and used the lagerphone for Piosenki, and Michael has decided to set the laments for a new commission from the Terezin Chamber Music Foundation. The circle is completed in November this year, when Dawn Upshaw will sing both my Piosenki and Michael's new piece, in Carnegie's Zankel Hall (further details of the concert here).

Michael's now embarked on a series of podcasts about his commission, and in this opening one below, he talks about our friendship, lagerphones, and the laments.

Check our Michael's blog for further podcasts.

Two summer festivals, two new commissions

August brings two new premieres, both from Summer festivals in some of the most beautiful areas of the UK. August 25th is the premiere of my Gigue for flute and harp at the Presteigne Festival, and earlier on August 6th it's the turn of the Lake District Summer Music Festival and the Heath Quartet's performance of my string quartet Dances for Oskar.

Stephanie Berger Photographs

I got hold of these two wonderful pictures of the Bard College performances of A Bird in Your Ear from photographer Stephanie Berger - both will make lovely covers to my promotional CDs!

Chanel Wood as the Nightingale
STEPHANIE BERGER, 2008

Yulia van Doren as the Bird with Golden Plumage
STEPHANIE BERGER, 2008

New Quartet for the Heaths

Some mediums are clearly harder to write for than others; for me, the String Quartet is probably the hardest of them all. I know many composers feel the same, for a mixture of reasons -

for composer who like colour (tick) the palette is extremely limited, especially as post-Bartok, almost (note **almost**!) any unusual colour you can think of has been done to the point of cliche

all four instruments demand, I mean really demand, equal treatment. For composers who like a healthy dose of um-cha (tick) or walking-bass (tick) the danger of having your cellist walking out on you are very real - more than that, using the cello as a bass instrument in this way really doesn't sound that great most of the time. It's not without reason that interplay and discussion of four equal partners has become the definition of a good quartet

historically, at least since Haydn's time, composers have written their most intellectual music for the medium. There's a huge weight of history bearing down on you shouting 'WRITE GREAT MUSIC ONLY FOR ME'. Indeed, a violinist in a quartet I worked with recently told me he saw it as his mission as a quartet player to 'save high art' - Yikes! I'm scared!

As far as this last point goes, I love intellectual music - Berg is one of my favourite composers - but I think it was something of a coming of age for me when I realised I'm not really an intellectual composer. I think as soon as I started writing operas I realised I was much more interested in, well, whatever the opposite of intellectual music is - music that's just music, music that moves you in some way, makes you dance, sing, cry, whatever. At least for now I think that's much more what I need to focus on.

So, earlier in the year Lake District Summer Music Festival commissioned a quartet from me for this year's festival, to be played by the exciting young Heath Quartet (pitcured above). After quaking in my boots for some months, when I finally got down to work on the piece it went really surprisingly smoothly. The key decision for me was that these would be a series of 'dances' in the Baroque sense. They would start in one place, explore the possibilities therein and stop. No Beethovenian developments, no 'musical philosophising' if you like. And that did the trick. I wrote five dances, each about 3-4 minutes long, and I'm really excited to hear them at the festival in August. They're called Dances for Oskar.

Meet the Composer Gala

This May 28th Meet the Composer Foundation is holding a gala dinner in honour of world-renowned soprano and great muse of composers, Dawn Upshaw. I'm thrilled that Dawn requested a piece of mine to be played at the event, and delighted that my friends at Metropolis Ensemble have agreed to help out - all very last minute - and perform a specially arranged version of Three Pieces from Piosenki with the adorable Melissa Wegner and the charming Kyle Ferrill (;

This annual event organized by Meet the Composer honors a prominent American artist. The benefit committee includes Esa-Pekka Salonen, James Levine, Robert Spano, Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, among others.

Dawn was involved in the original Carnegie Hall commission of Piosenki, and has recently been incredibly supportive of my music, commissioning Bird for her students on the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College, NY and scheduling performances of Piosenki herself in the fall (of which more soon).

More details about the gala...

Listen and learn about Piosenki...

Bird pictures

I've finally managed to get some stills from the DVD recording of A Bird in Your Ear, a selection below:

Satie's Tennis Ball

Mike and Metropolis perform Tennis from Sports by Satie arranged by me.

Satie arrangements

The full recording of my arrangements of Satie's Sports et Divertissements is now available here. The first performance here was given by the Metropolis Ensemble, conducted by Andrew Cyr and narrated by Mike Daisey.

I've added the texts that Mike Daisey read and the full recording including Mike's narration is at the bottom of this page. I must say I was particularly pleased with the tennis ball effect in no.21 (it's the conductor bouncing it).

Here are a couple of my favourites:

02 - La Balancoire - In a swing: My heart it is that swings and swings, it never gets dizzy. What tiny feet it has. Will it want to come back to my chest

09 - Le Bain de mer - Sea-bathing: The sea is wide madame. At least it's deep! Don't sit on the bottom it's very damp. Here come some nice old waves. Oh Madame! You are all wet. Oui Monsieur, they're full of water

10 - Le carnaval - Carnival: Confetti is falling all around. That one has on a melancholy mask. A tipsy Pierot tries walking straight. Enter, gracefully, some masked ladies. People push to see them, are they pretty?

15 - Le Pique-nique - Picnic: Everyone has brought potato salad. You have on a lovely white dress. Oh my! An aeroplane. Not at all, it's a storm coming up.

19 - Le Flirt - Flirtation: They say pretty things to each other. Modern things. 'How are you?', 'Don't you find me nice', 'Leave me alone', 'You have such big eyes', 'I wish I were on the moon'. He sighs. He shakes his head.

21 - Le Tennis - Tennis: Play? Yes! He has a good serve. What handsome legs he has. And a fine nose! A slashing serve. Game!

Full Recording of A Bird in Your Ear

I've made a full recording of the first performance of my opera/oratorio A Bird in Your Ear available here.

(...and am still waiting for proper the photos to come through)

A chat with Mike Daisey

During my trip to New York last month I popped into the city to have a chat with Mike Daisey who is going to be the narrator for my arrangement of Satie's Sports et Divertissements - this was organised by the Metropolis Ensemble to promote the forthcoming concert - see the video clip above for Part 1 of our chat.

If you're in NYC this Thursday do please head along to the Metropolis Ensemble Spring Concert to hear the concert. I can't wait to hear what the ebulient Mike brings to the piece. There's lots of other great music on the programme including a premiere by Ryan Carter, and pieces by Salonen and Ravel. Essa-Pekka himself is reportedly attending.

Update!

Three more short videos of the chat are now available here, including, in part 4, details of The Great Tennis Ball Secret. Tickets to the concert are reportedly selling fast, so if you fancy coming book now

Bird Premiere

The premiere performances of A Bird in Your Ear at Bard College, NY, were a great success at the weekend. I hope to have some better pictures and samples later, but for now here is one with all the soloists:

and one of me with wonderful Dawn:

And here is a taster:

Taster

Numbers 2-3 - I was a nightingale

Number 4 - The nightingale sings

Number 5 - Ivan went out walking

Number 6 - When the storm was over

Bard College Orchestra & Choir, conducted by James Bagwell, Yulia Van Doren soprano, Sungeun Lee tenor, Yohan Yi Baritone, Chanel Wood Soprano, Rie Miyake Soprano, Kristin Ezell Soprano, Melissa Wegner,Soprano, and Tania Rodriguez Mezzo-Soprano.font>

Want to hear it all? Click here to listen to the complete first performance

Dawn, Doug and Virgil

A nice profile of Dawn Upshaw in the Observer:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/story/0,,2265712,00.html

The article mentions my Bird opera, which is deep in rehearsal here at Bard College, and all going very well. The other half of the programme is Virgil Thomson's 4 Saints in 3 Acts, which from the bits of rehearsal I've seen is one strange piece - it seems to be trying to out-Satie Satie. The composer himself described it as 'seriously obscure' in this fascinating article on the piece in the NY Times from 1986
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/06/reviews/thomson-saints.html

"Stage directors are thrown by the very idea of it." Thomson says, but at Bard, director Doug Fitch is bringing it all marvellously, zanily and suitably surreally to life.

Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Award

I'm delighted to have just been awarded this year's Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Award, for "composers of exceptional talent and integrity". The fund was set up by the great French teacher Nadia Boulanger, in memory of her Prix de Rome-winning sister Lili, who died tragically young. Past winners have included Derek Bermel, George Benjamin and Per Norgard, so it's quite an honour; and I'm of course especially grateful to Osvaldo for nominating me.

Birds and Dates

Rehearsals are now well underway for my opera/oratorio/dramatic cantata A Bird in your Ear at Bard College. [ Read the Bard Press Release here ]

Melissa Wegner (who premiered Piosenki, and who is one of the narrators in the piece) kindly recorded some of the on-going vocal rehearsals - it's a very curious feeling to hear a recording of an as-yet-unheard composition which took place without you on the other side of the Atlantic! But it all sounds like it's shaping up very nicely and its comforting to be reminded of the fantastic standard of musicianship they have at Bard.

Meanwhile, off tonight to another bout of Opera Speed Dating with Tete a Tete

Metropolis Ensemble at the Times Center

The Times Center, NY

Some of New York's best chamber players have been corralled by the energetic young conductor Andrew Cyr to form the Metropolis Ensemble. They've just announced their spring concert which will take place this April 10, in another great looking American venue - the Times Center, part of the New York Times building designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, and situated in the heart of the Times Square District adjacent to The New 42nd Street.

The concert will end with my arragement of Satie's Sports et Divertissements specially commissioned by the Ensemble. They are a wonderful set of pieces, and I think and hope the orchestration adds an extra layer to their wit and colour.

More info on the Metropolis Ensemble website.

You wait ages for one and then...

2008 is already shaping up to be a busy year. Along with A Bird in your Ear which receives its premiere at BARD college in March, I was thrilled to get an email from Jeremy Geffen at Carnegie Hall, offering me a new commission to write for the clarinettist Todd Palmer and the St Lawrence String Quartet, who will give the premiere in Carnegie's Zankel Hall next October. I know these performers principally from their wonderful recording of Golijov's grammy-nominated Yiddishbbuk CD - it's hard to believe I'll be writing something for the same players.

A few days later I got a call from Andrew Lucas at the Lake District Summer Music Festival whom I met earlier in the year at the 4x4 Composer Residency. They've also kindly offered me a commission for next year's festival.

Finally, I understand that New York's up-and-coming Metropolis Ensemble are planning to do my Satie arrangements in a concert in the city next April.

Berimbau premiere

Matthew Schellhorn

A huge thank you to Matthew Schellhorn and the wonderful people of Hertford who gave my piano piece Berimbau a great performance and reception at the premiere yesterday afternoon. Matthew also gave a scintillating performance of Messiaen's Petites esquisses d'oiseaux, along with Daquin's Le Coucou - food for thought for my 'Bird Opera'.

Not quite so much thanks go to the Hertford council whose multi-story car park closed down at 5pm leaving my car inside overnight!