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Remain Composed

Remain Composed

by William King

Performing Arts Music Interviews

Season 1

Anna Clyne on visual art, augmented orchestras and contemporary music programming

Anna Clyne is a GRAMMY-nominated and Ivor Novello Award-winning composer. She is one of the world's most in-demand living composers. Anna tells Remain Composed about the relationship between music and visual arts. She often paints works to alongside her pieces of music, which she says gives her space to reflect. Anna tells us about the 'augmented orchestra' she's been developing with her husband and sound engineer Jody Elff. It's a technological development, designed to give more creative options to Anna as a composer.

Cameron Biles-Lidell on nature, architecture, harps and community

Cameron Biles-Lidell is a composer based in North Wales. He tells Remain Composed he enjoys writing programme music, often based on landscapes or landmarks, and he also writes absolute music. He says he’s always thinking about evoking mood, image or feelings in his music. Discussing how he gets his ideas flowing, Cameron says he always starts by going for a walk or at least getting out of his house. Cameron says he often relies on tropes to communicate the story behind a piece to the audience quickly, and he likes it when his music is described as filmic. He says he fell in love with orchestral music by listening to great film music. And he says the comparison shows that his music connects with a wide audience. Cameron has written several places inspired by the area where he lives. He says music based on places can create a cultural resonance with locals, and transport listeners from other places.

Chloe Knibbs on female composers, humour, and performance

Chloe Knibbs is a composer currently studying for a PhD at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. In her work, she explores ways of being inspired by historical women composers. Chloe tells Remain Composed about writing her 40 minute work Prism for piano and electronics, using material by and telling the story of the French composer Marie Jaëll (1846-1925). Chloe tells us she enjoyed combining humour with a serious message. Chloe also discusses her fascination with the English composer Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), about whom she’s written two opera scenes. Chloe says she enjoys projects most which have a lengthy ideas phase, and a piece is not finished when the score is complete - as she feels the performance is a crucial part of the creative process.

Artificial Intelligence special with Tom Collins

This episode focuses on AI, with Tom Collins, who is an associate professor of music engineering technology at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. We discuss how AI tools make music, whether they're a threat to human creatives' jobs, the ways Tom has used AI creatively in his music and the challenges facing copyright. Tom also tells us about the Music and AI course he teaches, and how he makes sure the assignments are AI proof. Tom encourages everyone to have a go at using an AI music generator like Suno or Udio, to get first-hand experience of how it works - rather than just listening to hype in the media.

Sarah Henderson on story-telling, competitions and shopping centres

Sarah Henderson is a composer, soprano and cellist preparing to study an MA in composition at the Royal Academy of Music. Sarah tells Remain Composed about the places she takes inspiration from - ranging from the Bible to a Japanese shopping centre. Discussing process, Sarah says she enjoys the planning stage and playing around with ideas. She says actually committing notes to the page can feel scary unless she feels her ideas are already well formed. Sarah recently won Tenebrae's 'Undiscovered Voices' composition competition, which was held to mark their 25th anniversary. Her winning piece, 'Wanderers' was performed by the choir at Wigmore Hall, and will be included on their upcoming album. Sarah tells Remain Composed about the relationship she's been building with the choir.

Philip Stopford on psalms, accessibility, publishing and a snooker analogy

Philip Stopford is a composer and choral trainer based in Leighton Buzzard. His music has taken him from Truro to New York via Oxford, Canterbury, Belfast and Chester. He gives Remain Composed his thoughts for others looking to build a career in composition. Philip says 99% of his pieces are settings of sacred texts - and with each work he tries to think about what he wants it to achieve or say. He says that as a composer of church music, he likes to write music which people will actually use in their worship. He says he loves being part of people’s repertoire. Discussing the limitations on composers, Philip says there are fewer notes than there are balls on a snooker table. But every game of snooker is different, and we haven’t run out of melodies just yet. Philip tells us the stories behind some of his most well known works like Do Not Be Afraid, which was commissioned for a baptism, and Lully, Lulla, Lullay which was written as a last minute addition to an album.

Debbie Wiseman on TV, royalty, instrumentation and showreels

Debbie Wiseman has more than 200 film and TV credits. She’s Classic FM’s composer in residence, and last year she won the Ivor Novello Award for outstanding contribution to screen composition. Debbie tells Remain Composed about how the process for writing scores varies between projects such as the BBC series Wolf Hall and Father Brown. She explains how important the relationship is between director and composer. Asked about the threat of AI on creative work, Debbie says her composition often stems from subtext - not just the literal images on screen. Debbie explains how studying at Guildhall School of Music and Drama helped her find her love for screen-composition. And she describes how she sent out showreels when trying to land her first job, as nobody ever advertises for a composer. Debbie wrote two Alleluias performed at the coronation in 2023. She tells Remain Composed how one which had originally been written for the choir of Westminster Abbey was reworked for the Ascension Gospel Choir.

Matthew Warren on opera, Manx and universities

Matthew Warren is a composer and researcher. He's currently preparing for the premiere of an opera he's written in Manx Gaelic. He tells Remain Composed it's the first opera that's been written in the language. Matthew says it's been written for a string quartet, singer and dancer, to maximise the opportunities for taking it on tour. Matthew says his favourite part of the compositional process is the ideas stage, before putting pen to paper. Matthew also discusses the research he did for his PhD, into the relationship between universitiy bureaucracy and composers' creativity. He says while some composers accept the demands of the institutions, but others are on the verge of leaving the sector.

Precious Akindele on being real, graphical notation and her uncle's punk band

Precious Akindele is a composer, pianist and organist. She’s been studying at the BRIT School, whose alumni include Adele, Amy Winehouse and Jessie J, and will begin studying composition at Trinity Laban in September. She was featured playing her own composition on Channel 4’s The Piano. As a classical composer, Precious tells Remain Composed she’s enjoyed learning from her pop peers at the BRIT School, who often put their own emotions, vulnerabilities into their music. Precious sometimes writes music sitting at her piano, and sometimes on the sofa. She says it can be a full body experience, which has occasionally involved dancing to music in her head. Precious says she uses graphical notation when writing scores, which give performers freedom. This has included depicting dynamics with the thickness of lines or sound quality with colour gradients. Precious is visually impaired, which she says makes her think about things differently.

Frederick Viner on abstract music, Ligeti, new audiences and YouTube

Frederick Viner is a composer, pianist and Youtuber based in York. He tells Remain Composed that parameters are his friends when composing, and if a commissioner hasn’t provided any, he quickly works some out for himself. Frederick describes his music as abstract, saying it’s not normally about anything in particular. Frederick says watching videos on YouTube while growing up helped him discover a range of music. Now, he makes videos and has more than 28,000 subscribers. He says he tries to steer viewers towards lesser-known composers. Frederick says music is at an interesting juncture, and asks how we can reconcile a traditional 'museum culture' with a culture of championing the new. Frederick discusses the influence of 20th Century composer György Ligeti, and explains the complicated challenge he set himself of writing a Ligeti-style ‘tempo fugue’. (Here’s Frederick’s video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22N7ykqgceQ) Frederick also tells Remain Composed he’s been helping the ABRSM put together new creative musicianship qualifications.

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