Conversation for Solo Trumpet
This piece is essentially an elaboration of lip-slur exercises (where each exercise takes place on a different harmonic). It is also theatrical, visual and humorous. The performer is encouraged to…
Chorale Prelude ‘Warum Sollt’
In this prelude the chorale melody is not smoothly integrated, rather it is an impostor to the conversation between the right hand and pedals. Gradually, however, it begins to influence…
Prelude on Hyfrydol
The choice of the joyful melody Hyfrydol by RH Prichard reflected my desire to create a celebratory, extrovert recessional type piece. It is also a reflection of my Welsh roots.…
The Ruffian on the Stair
Summary A love triangle, incest, a murder or two, suspicion, loss and loneliness. And a goldfish, of course. The Ruffian on the Stair was British playwright Joe Orton’s breakthrough work,…
Maghreb
In 2008 I was asked to write a work for 36 trumpets as a companion piece for Harrison Birtwistle’s Static Mobile. A trip to Marrakesh resulted in the piece Djemma el Fna. Before the…
Hey Ho, Nobody Home
A large scale-piece made of a simple idea: a three-part round which is both interspersed with and overlaid by various instrumental and choral groups. At the end all of the…
Fantasia for Orchestra
Written in 1991, this piece definitely falls into the category of 'juvenilia,' but it was, nevertheless, an important staging post for me. Writing at a time when I had not…
Variations for Orchestra
This work was inspired by Schoenberg's Op.31 Variations for Orchestra. Despite this, it shares almost no stylistic similarities with that piece, being more an amalgam of Mathias, Britten and Shostakovich…
Variation XVI, fanfare for brass quintet
Perhaps Britten’s greatest opera, The Turn of the Screw contains fifteen interludes that are variations on a single theme. This fanfare is both a sixteenth variation upon that theme and…
Oppositions I
The first of my pieces exploring the abrupt juxtaposition of contrasting thematic material. The idea was borrowed from a friend who wrote a striking work with the same title, which…