Table Talk (2018) 
for symphonic brass, timpani and percussion 

‘The sounds produced by brass instruments sometimes have striking affinities with human speech. Table Talk investigates this premise, reimagining the symphonic brass ensemble as a collection of human voices. The composition deals in observational humour, representing different modes of speech heard among people at shared tables – in restaurants, cafés, or at home. Over the course of three short movements, I explore mannerisms associated with gossiping, ranting and bantering and underscore them with playful percussive grooves.’ 

Table Talk was commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center for its 2018 season, supported by the Merwin Geffen, M.D. and Norman Solomon, M.D. New Commissions Fund. 

Three études for piano and flower pots (2019)

‘A phenomenon of 19^th century musical culture, études were designed to showcase the technique and virtuosity of a star performer while retaining an educational function. The most famous piano études by Chopin, Liszt, Debussy and Ligeti are celebrated not just as showpieces but for pushing boundaries of expression, inviting us to reimagine the sonorities that might be drawn from familiar instruments. I’ve employed the étude genre as a vehicle for presenting an unusual type of percussion instrument: a set of flower pots. Pitted against the piano, these are played with beaters in the same way as a mallet instrument would be. As studies in sound, my études respond to some of the expressive conventions of nineteenth-century piano repertoire, whilst teasing out the musical capabilities of an everyday object.’ 

Three études was written for Psappha Ensemble’s 2018–19 Composing For scheme, and performed by Tim Williams and Benjamin Powell. 

Five Letters from Aubrey Beardsley (2019)
for countertenor and prepared piano

‘This song cycle comprises settings letters by British art nouveau illustrator Aubrey Beardsley. The letters were sent to friends during the final years of his life, before his premature death from tuberculosis at the age of 25. This piece requires the piano to be ‘prepared’ by wedging nails and pieces of sponge between the strings, drastically altering the sound of the instrument.’

Five Letters was supported by Princeton Sound Kitchen and the Department of Music at Princeton University. The first filmed performance took place in Princeton in 2019.

Patdeep Studies (2021) 
for sitar and chamber ensemble

‘Here are five short studies that explore elements of the traditional Hindustani Rāg Patdeep. The composition was my first attempt to engage with the traits of rāg performance as well as the nuances of this particular rāg. Support from the PRS Foundation’s Composers’ Fund enabled me to purchase a sitar and take lessons with Jasdeep Singh Degun. 

The set opens with a study in ālāp, which is the slow unveiling of the rāg ‘pathway’. A ‘pathway’ is best understood as a special way of moving through the notes in the rāg scale. Through this unique route, performers reveal the identity of the rāg to their audiences. This process of unveiling is the main function of ālāp sections in traditional rāg performances. My ālāp study is followed by a study in jor – a development section in which a pulse is established then quickened. The third study focuses on gat composition, using the traditional building blocks of the mukhrā (the ‘face’ of the composition), mañjhā (the ‘bed’) and antarā (the ‘verse’). The fourth study is a free-form offering inspired by tāns – rapid passages that are used as both improvisational and teaching tools. The fifth study explores the ālāp again, this time with an accompanying instrument shadowing the rāg pathway.’ 

Patdeep Studies was commissioned by Psappha with the support of The Fenton Arts Trust, Fidelio Charitable Trust, The Hinrichsen Foundation and Psappha’s Composition Bank supporters. The work was included on Psappha’s 30th anniversary album Psappha Commissions for NMC Recordings.

The Opium-Eaters (2016) 
for string quartet

‘The title of this is drawn from Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater  from 1821. Confessions is an autobiographical account of his struggles with opium addiction. He took the drug in the form of laudanum, a popular opium tincture. De Quincey meditates first on the pleasures of opium, describing its effectiveness in aiding sleep, fostering a sense of wellbeing and assuaging psychological disquiet. He goes on to chart the decline of such pleasures into nightmarish visions, hallucinations and physical frailty. In the early 1800s little was known about the effects of narcotics: Confessions was one of the first publications to offer a systematic study of their regular use. 

I was intrigued by the fact that Beethoven’s late quartets were published in the same decade as De Quincey’s famous work. In The Opium-Eaters I respond to both, quietly exploring the idea of moments of epiphany. The performers are asked to face inwards, a position that string quartets would adopt when playing from the table music stands of the late 18^th / early 19^th centuries.’

The Opium-Eaters was premiered by the Escher String Quartet at Princeton University in 2016.

Plaisir n’ai plus (2023)
for six voices 

‘Plaisir n’ai plus, mais vis en déconfort is a chanson by the 16^th century French Renaissance poet Clément Marot. It translates as ‘pleasure is no more, it lives in discomfort’.  One of Marot’s contributions to the literature of this era was the translation and versification of the Psalms – a process that enabled them to be more readily memorised and sung. Marot’s translations continue to be used by Protestant congregations in France to this day.

This musical setting of the chanson draws on two earlier forms of vocal music: the tradition of monodic Psalm singing and the move in Italian artistic circles towards a seconda pratica (or stile moderno) at the turn of the 17th century – a development that placed new emphasis on clarity of text in musical settings. The composition looks to Monteverdi’s madrigal Sfogava con le stelle as a model for interplay between speech-rhythm passages and contrapuntal unfolding. In this work, I recomposed cadential figures from madrigals by Gesualdo and Monteverdi to explore new harmonic territories.’

Plaisir n’ai plus was commissioned by the Gesualdo Six and can be heard on their 2024 album Queen of Hearts for Hyperion Records. It is for two altos, two tenors and two basses.

The Dead (2024)
for mixed voices

‘This is a setting of a sonnet of the same name by the Scottish poet Don Paterson, born in 1963. The poem appears in his 2006 collection Orpheus which presents free translations of Rilke’s Die Sonette an Orpheus. Don characterises his translations of Rilke’s 55 sonnets as ‘versions’ which map the ground of the original poetic texts. This particular poem speaks of the everyday presence of death in the natural world – of a cycle of decay that generates growth. I was particularly struck by the way the sonnet probes the nature of the partnership between the living and the dead, pondering where the balance of power truly lies in this strange union. 

I wrote The Dead  for ORA Singers and conductor Suzi Digby following an invitation to reflect on Robert Ramsey’s early 17^th century composition When David Heard – a setting of part of the Book of Samuel, in which King David laments the death of his son. Whereas Ramsey dwells on the devastating chasm between the living and the dead, Paterson’s sonnet draws attention to the knowledge of death we carry with us, embracing what he describes as our ‘twin citizenship.’ 

The Dead is for two sopranos, two altos, two tenors, and two basses.

Three Movements after Brueghel (2017) 
for large orchestra

 ‘The three movements of this work – Egg Dance, Skaters and Maypole Dance – take inspiration from physical movements depicted in paintings by the Northern Renaissance artists Bruegel the Elder and Brueghel the Younger. The Egg Dance (c.1620) shows a traditional dancing game performed inbetween eggs laid out on the ground. In Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap (1565) adults and children skate on a frozen pond. St. George’s Kermis with the Dance Around the Maypole (1627) captures the pulsing energy of a lively dash around the village maypole.’ 

Three Movements was workshopped by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra at Princeton University.