Can you tell us a little about the concept behind your first event?
Two years ago, I created a 13-part documentary series called Identity and the Anxiety of Influence for the British Music Collection, which featured interviews with a number of classical composers, and the double bassist and founder of the Chineke! Orchestra, Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE. I travelled across the country over the course of several weeks to meet each composer – Daniel Kidane, Dominique Le Gendre, Philip Herbert, Tunde Jegede – and I feel privileged not only to have gotten to know their music but also to have made four new friends.
I found the experience so inspiring that I wanted to write a piece responding to these encounters and to the music of these amazing composers. In a sense, I wanted to continue the conversation, but this time via music. A string quartet concert seemed the ideal medium for this, and The Diasporic Quartets will be premiered alongside their music in my first event on Saturday 23 October. Each movement of the piece is dedicated to, and directly inspired by, the musical landscapes of these four composers – in this concert we’ll hear two of the four movements.
What can audiences expect?
In a word – diversity. The exciting thing about this concert is that each composer has a unique voice. All five of us are influenced by our respective heritages but choose to explore and express it in very different ways. One draws influence from Russian and Eritrean music; another creates a synthesis between West African and Western classical music; one draws on French Caribbean music with elements of French impressionism, and another infuses African-American spirituals with the soundworlds akin to Vaughan Williams and Finzi.
Finally, aside from the LSO Jerwood Composer+ Scheme, what is keeping you busy at the moment?
This past year has been a very prolific period for me writing-wise. I was commissioned by The Bach Choir as part of their Bach Inspired series, responding to one of the chorales from the St Matthew Passion. I worked on a virtuosic accordion piece, Iconoclast, dedicated to my former teacher Steve Martland for the Royal Academy of Music’s 200th Anniversary series; a children’s piece, Rascal, inspired by my dog(!) for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and a Windrush Anthem for Lambeth, Rush, commissioned by the Brixton-based Pegasus Opera Company for their community world chorus.
The anthem was broadcast in Windrush Square on Windrush Day and has since been distributed to schools across Lambeth. It was an extremely challenging project as it involved singers and instrumentalists from all over the world, recording their individual parts via Zoom. Currently, I’m developing a full-length opera inspired by the Windrush story alongside the British playwright, producer, and director Patricia Cumper MBE FRSA.
Identity and the Anxiety of Influence was commissioned by Sound and Music for the British Music Collection.
LSO Jerwood Composer+ is generously supported by Jerwood Arts.
