My brass quintet ‘A Walk with Ingres’ Wife’ is now available from Edition Skellton.
Why the title? The first issue (June 1914) of the Vorticist movement’s journal ’Blast’ included an article by it’s editor Wyndham Lewis claiming that the wife of classicist painter Ingres would cover his eyes when out walking to protect him from anything ugly or banal. Of course The Vorticists relished anything of that sort.
The piece follows the artist and his wife on a promenade.

On November 4th the Stane Street Sinfonietta played my ‘Another Orpheus’ for string orchestra in Horsham where the poet Shelley was born. The concert is part of a series devoted to the 200th anniversary of Shelley’s death. The title comes his drama ‘Hellas’ which was written in 1821 to raise awareness of the Greek War of Independence (during which Byron famously perished). From it I took the line ‘Another Orpheus sings again and loves and weeps and dies’.
(Also thinking of Orpheus, my ‘Looking Back‘ for violin and piano is being recorded this year by Siân Philipps.)

Tête à Tête Opera made an excellent video of the first performance of ‘The Dong with a Luminous Nose‘ which can be seen here with Steve Dummer, Aidan Smith and Eline Pérès in full flight!

On September 11th ‘The Dong with a Luminous Nose’ got its first staged outing as a performance piece with Eline Peres as mime/dancer, Steve Dummer (clarinet) and Aidan Smith (voice) at the Cockpit Theatre, London as part the Tête à Tête Opera festival.

(Photo Claire Shovelton @claireshov)