Period Pieces
Last year I wrote four pieces for keyboard in the form of a baroque suite (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue).
I have now recomposed them for string trio. You can hear the Sarabande in Soundcloud.
Sleepless City
‘Noc
turne’ is a short new piece for violin and piano, a partner for my ‘Cortège?’ – both prompted by poems by Lorca. In this case it is the bizarre, threatening ‘Nocturne, Brooklyn Bridge’ written by Lorca in the 1920s when he briefly lived in New York (the title of the collection ‘Poet in New York’ was meant to sound paradoxical!)
“Out in the sky, no one sleeps. No one, no one.
No one sleeps.
Lunar creatures sniff and circle the dwellings.”
Changing places
Fellow composer Julian Broughton and I have suggested changing our identities (and shaking up our ideas) by using each other’s compositional ‘f’ingerprints’. We have teamed up with clarinettist Steve Dummer to try to raise funds to commission and perform new pieces for clarinet and piano, intended for students as well as professional musicians.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/julian-broughton-1
image © 2021 AO Kaspersky Lab
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.
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.