Contretemps
The bassoon is an awkward, athletic, melancholy, rambunctious instrument!
There aren’t many solo pieces for it – so I’ve just written this.
https://soundcloud.com/johnbhawkins/contretemps
New Year’s Irresolution
‘Kiss Me on Wednesday (Don’t Kiss me Now)’ is a cabaret song cycle I wrote with brilliant lyrics by Alison Rutherford, sad and funny. This one is ‘New Year’s Irresolution’.
Another New Year,
Another fresh look at your life:
A change of career?
Perhaps a new husband or wife?
Click the picture to see it full page.
O Ecstasy!
These SATB settings are of four vivid poems by Mervyn Peake. They alternate between the nonsensical and the heartbreakingly tragic.
1. ‘O Love!, O Death!, O Ecstasy!’
2. ‘And I Thought You Beside Me’
3. ‘The Trouble with Geraniums’
4. ‘Out of the Chaos of my Doubt’
Score available from me https://johnhawkinsmusic.co.uk/contact/
No longer distant Echo
In 1991, director Wilf Judd at Covent Garden developed a wonderfully imaginative scheme (The Garden Venture) to commission short chamber operas. Mine, titled ‘Echoes‘, had a brilliant libretto by Anne Harris whose skills – developed writing for television – were perfect for opera. I’ve just revised the music and the score is now available from me in PDF.
Crossing borders
I wrote ’Crossings’ for viola and guitar this year for violist Patricia McCarty and guitarist Bill Zito. Their first, video, performance was streamed online from the InterHarmony International Music Festival:
https://www.interharmony.com/
The concert is posted on the festival’s YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPCM2S3TJUk
Crossings is at about 55 mins into the video.
John Hawkins studied composition with Malcolm Williamson and Elisabeth Lutyens. He has written a wide range of chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral pieces, which have been performed worldwide.