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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Sam Hayden: Presence/Absence
Sam Hayden studied composition with Martin Butler, Michael Finnissy and Jonathan Harvey at the University of Sussex, and Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory, Den Haag. He has been the recipient of many awards, including first prize in the 1995 Benjamin Britten International Competition, Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellowship (2001), enabling him to work with Brian Ferneyhough at Stanford University and won first prize in the 2003 Christoph Delz Foundation Composers' Competition. Hayden’s complex and arresting trio for flute, violin and percussion, system/ error, is coupled with two large-scale works performed by Ensemble Mosaik and his newest work misguided written for ELISION. The delicate schismatics for solo violin and live electronics is available as a free bonus track download. “Many of his works seem at first encounter uncompromising and rebarbative...But though the two pieces that open this collection from the last decade seem to be the opposite sides of that same, rather forbidding coin...what makes them anything but forbidding is the energy and exuberance that powers so much of Hayden's invention.” The Guardian, 5th July 2012 **** “Full of striking ideas, often complex, though some are beguilingly simple. A couple of gestures lose their lustre through over-use, but this is an intriguing sound-world.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2012 *** “Sam Hayden has a brilliant ear – the overlapping violin, flute and percussion lines deliciously collide and converse. You’re left reeling at the fact that these rich sounds can be produced by so few players and can actually be notated...All stimulating, and Virgil Ferragut’s sleeve art is equally imposing.” The Arts Desk, 25th August 2012 “Fiercely committed performances, as might have been expected from the calibre of the artists and ensembles involved, and a disc which deserves attention from all inquiring listeners for some seriously impressive music-making.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2012 | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Dai Fujikura: Secret Forest
Although Dai Fujikura was born in Osaka, Japan, he has now spent more than 20 years in the UK where he studied composition with Edwin Roxburgh, Daryl Runswick and George Benjamin. During the last decade he has been the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Huddersfield Festival Young Composers Award and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in this country, Internationaler Wiener Composition Prize, the Paul Hindemith Prize in Austria and Germany respectively, and both the OTAKA and Akutagawa awards in 2009. Dai's music is inspired by the 'beauty, form and movement of swarms of fish and birds', and by the vivid colours and textures of sounds. This is explored in Secret Forest and Okeanos which which combines oboe, viola and clarinet with Japanese instruments. Dai's works are frequently performed to an international audience and he has recently collaborated on a new album with experimental musician and ex-Japan singer, David Sylvian. “The sensuous, watery influences of Takemitsu, writ large, are certainly audible. He considers himself British and says writing slow, meditative gong music is against his nature. This lively east-west tension is evident in the five works here.” The Observer, 24th June 2012 “All the performances do Fujikura proud in their unbridled commitment and attentiveness to the smallest nuance. David Toop provides an illuminating overview of his often unlikely evolution...Natalie Braune's cover artwork, too, feels entirely appropriate as an adjunct to the music of one of the most distinctive and thought-provoking younger composers.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2012 | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Huw Watkins: In My Craft or Sullen Art
Welsh composer and pianist Huw Watkins read Music at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr, and completed an MMus in composition at the Royal College of Music with Julian Anderson. He was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he is now a Professor of Composition. The centrepiece of this disc, commissioned by Sir Nicholas Goodison and premiered by Mark Padmore, sets Dylan Thomas's defiant In my craft or sullen art for tenor and string quartet. Alina Ibragimova excels in the virtuosic Partita for solo violin, which Watkins describes as a 'very fast, relentless gigue’. Huw's brother Paul is soloist in the lyrical Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments; while there are echoes of Britten and Berkeley in the beautifully wrought Three Auden Songs, sung by tenor Mark Padmore, accompanied by Huw Watkins on piano. “The three-movement Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments...was the piece that first identified him as a composer to follow; pungent and confrontational, it still stands up well...In My Craft or Sullen Art, show Watkins' rather Brittenesque approach to word setting; his instrumental writing is more immediate, more characterful, though.” The Guardian, 24th May 2012 *** “The pick of this chamber anthology lies...in the introspective musings of the Partita for solo violin – a work of remarkable depth and compact appeal, brilliantly championed here by Ibragimova.” Financial Times, 9th June 2012 **** “Superb performances as expected from these artists” Gramophone Magazine, September 2012 “What strikes you most about Huw Watkins's music is its natural ease. Lyricism flourishes, and tonal echoes are exposed alongside chromatic scrunches and abrasive textures.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2012 **** | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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