PORTFOLIO
IN SUPPORT OF MY DYCP APPLICATION
Balo is a composition and improvisation duo featuring myself and percussionist Will Shaw.
Balo are currently working on an installation piece called 'Roomsound' that in collaboration with Foodhall Sheffield. Foodhall are an incredible multi-award winning organisation who are tackling social isolation through their work as an open public dining room. I composed a piece in celebration of the renovation of their new space and it will premiere in June.
Upcoming:
- Debut album to launch Summer 2021
- Balo will feature on a compilation album put together by Jazz at the Lescar, funded by Jazz North 2021
Kate Griffin and Manon McCoy
Collaborative songwriting duo of banjo and harp
Kate Griffin is a leading clawhammer banjo player and singer who fronts the global folk outfit 'Mishra'.
Kate and I have been working closely for several years writing songs and music based on our personal experiences of womanhood, bringing together our shared experiences. Kate is one of the 4 musicians who will be joining me for the Inner project which I hope to be funding through DYCP, we will be expanding the work we do as a duo into a larger group and exploring these themes in more depth.
Library of Works and Commissions
276
Viola and 2 pedal harps
This piece was composed during a 6 week funded research project into the perceptions of time within music where I worked with Dr Dorothy Ker to develop music through which to explore this theme.
Performed by Cori Smith (Viola) and Alley Bridge-York and myself (Pedal Harps)
Overlap
Symphony Orchestra
This piece explores movement across the expanse of an orchestra through the textural arrangement of material. Composed for The University of Sheffield Symphony Orchestra, it premiered December 2019.
Internal Spaces
Solo Piano
This piece was commissioned for Antigoni Anastasiadou who recorded it in May 2021. The piece explores the concept of entering the mind and mapping this intimate space to the inside of a grand piano.
Cori Smith & Manon McCoy
This collaboration is a long term working project with composer and viola player Cori Smith. We met 7 years ago at the Royal Northern College of Music and have been working together since. Cori will be my primary composing collaborator for the Inner project as we will be exploring very intimate themes and I feel it is important for this to take place in a safe environment before putting these ideas out into the open.
Cori also has a very unique writing style drawing on her folk background and her classical training at the RNCM, I therefore think she will bring a lot of interesting suggestions to the table.
Through my DYCP project I am hoping to bring together the work that I do with Cori and with Kate, and develop it within a larger group.
Collaborators for my project Inner
Cori Smith Antigoni Anastasiadou Juliana Day Kate Griffin
Other Projects:
Shivelights
Contemporary Folk Trio
Combining contemporary techniques and minimalism with British folk music.
Performed at Celtic Connections Glasgow January 2020.
Greystones Sheffield February 2021
Upcoming:
EP Launch July 2021
Winter Tour 2021
Sheffield Indian Music Ensemble
Lead by John Ball
I have been studying Indian Classical music under John Ball for the past 4 years. In January 2019 myself and 3 other students of John traveled to India with him for an International Conference in Gujarat. We collaborated with students at the University of Vadodara and studied with them during our time there.
I am now a member of the Sheffield Indian Music Ensemble, and have also performed alongside John for recitals at Leeds Conservatoire.
Research in to perceptions of time within music - 2019
BALO
Contemporary Duo
This project was stimulated by a curiosity towards time, how it is perceived and its power within a musical setting. I designed a research project through which I would compose a piece of music for a series of workshops in order to explore my ideas.
I was interested in exploring three main aspects within this project; 1.) The relationship between composer and score, 2.) The relationship between performer and score and through that the power the composer has through the score on the performer, and 3.) The relationship between performer (through which the composer passes their influence) and the audience, and thus the impact that each of these relationships and the choices within them has on the experience of the audience. My research combined two areas; 1.) anthropomorphic and philosophical discussions about the relationships between the human perception of time, and consciousness, and 2.) contemporary notation, experimenting with non-linear, graphic notation and time-space notation. The second became my focus and lead to the development of the notation used within this score.
Recorded by Alison Bridge-York (Harp), Cori Rose Smith (Viola) and Manon McCoy (Harp)
- October 2019