writing music – a composing diary
Flare is a short, sharp, alarm-call kind of piece for orchestra which I wrote last month and which has just received its premiere by the Ghent University Symphony Orchestra conducted by Steven Decraene in Cambridge last week. It went very well and I’m looking forward to further performances in Ghent next month.
Music by Jeremy Thurlow
I’ve been writing a new piece for ensemble CB3, which they will premiere in the West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge on Friday January 25th at 8.00. I’ve been asked to ‘curate’ the programme, and have chosen an exciting line-up of music by John Woolrich, Jonathan Harvey, Ewan Campbell and Magnus Lindberg. Michael Downes conducts my piece and the Woolrich, and the rest of the programme is shared between myself and Fergus Macleod. CB3 have made a speciality of new music and this will be one of their biggest programmes to date.
My new piece is called Breath, and is scored for an unusual ensemble in which reed instruments are very much to the fore. After the concert I will post up an excerpt to listen to, and the programme note, on this site.
Music by Jeremy Thurlow
Two new commissions have just come in: I’ve been asked to write a new piece for CB3, as part of a programme on 25 January 2008 which will include Magnus Lindberg’s powerful Corrente and Rolf Hind’s haunting The City of Love. I’ve also been asked to write a short ‘curtain-raiser’ for the University of Ghent Symphony Orchestra, to be premiered on their tour to Cambridge in April next year.
Music by Jeremy Thurlow
I now have full details of the BBC Phil. concert conducted by James Macmillan which includes my piece Search Engines. It’s an Invitation Concert in Studio 7, BBC Manchester (in Oxford Road) on Friday 23rd February, starting at 7.30.
Tickets are free, and need to be reserved by calling the BBC Philharmonic ticket line on 0161 244 4002, or emailing philharmonic@bbc.co.uk.
The programme consists of four new pieces:
Christian Mason, …from bursting suns escaping…
Jeremy Thurlow, Search Engines
Symon Clarke, Statue Circle
Matthew Brooks, Event horizon
There’s an intriguing suggestion of common ground between the four titles, and it will be fascinating to hear the four (entirely independent and unprompted) approaches to the themes of discovery, technology and nature. (For a short note about the ideas behind my piece, see the programme notes page and scroll down to ‘Orchestral Music’.)
The concert will be recorded; it may later be broadcast and if so I’ll post up details as soon as I hear them.
Music by Jeremy Thurlow
Jeremy Thurlow - composer 