current projects
MMus Project, Royal Academy of Music
My Masters’ degree research focuses on creating a repertoire for the bass recorder, a historically underrepresented member of the recorder family.
As well as a survey of original works for bass recorder, this project explores the creation of new repertoire in three areas:
-
Transcriptions and arrangements of existing contemporary music for low flutes and other instruments
-
Adaptations of Renaissance “viola bastarda” settings of popular madrigals and songs
-
Commissioning new solo and chamber works for bass recorder
Repertoire includes "Toward the Sea" by Toru Takemitsu (originally alto flute and guitar), "Atem-Lied" by Toshio Hosokawa (originally bass flute), diminutions by R Rognoni on "Pulchra Es" by Palestrina, "Studio 2a" by Emmanuele Casale and others
Toward the Sea
Renaissance and medieval songs dialogue with contemporary music for recorder, guitar and electronics, inspired by the sounds of the sea and the movement of breath. Part of an ongoing collaboration with guitarist/theorbist Declan Hickey.
We are currently working on a new duo commission for recorder and guitar with composer Taibah Orpin, exploring the possibilities of digital and/or audio scores and how musical phrases can be shaped by natural phenomena.
FLOODPLAIN
Our world is made from water, threaded through with rivers and surrounded by sea.
Inspired by the impacts of drought and flooding across the UK and Europe in summer 2022, this programme both explores the tie that rivers provide between nature and our human world in a time when these seem more and more separate, and muses on what a future might look like.
Four new works for recorders, harp and narrator stand alongside improvisations guided by fragments of text and images to create to create a long form musical experience which flows, like a river, through many changing moods, characters and stories.
Music: Lucy Callen, Archie John, Mary Offer, Declan Molloy
Text: Madeliene Walder, Alice Oswald, Mary Offer, Jemma Borg