Earlier this year I had the immense privilege to have my latest orchestral work premiered by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO). This was part of the LPO’s 2022/23 Young Composer’s Programme with composer/conductor Brett Dean.
This programme included individual lessons, workshops, group seminars, professional development, concerts, all culminating in a new work written for the LPO and Foyle Future Firsts to be premiered at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall.
A little about the work:
Through Gates Unseen
A ceremony, a passage, a rite.
The ‘staff’, violently shaken, raised, swayed, and slammed back down provides the catalyst for much of the activities enacted by this vast congregation. Low drones smear and collide with each other, brass choirs amplify the entrance of towering blocks, drums with harp and oboe awkwardly dance, the viola laments, the cello responds, echoes of bassoons and bass clarinets shadow the intensity while the ‘staff’ reasserts itself for a final solo of ecstasy.
Through Gates Unseen takes Australian artist and descendent of the Yawuru people Robert Andrew’s Tracing inscription (2020) as a departure point to explore the dialogue between control and decay. Andrew’s work uses suspended charcoal, branches, ochre, and stones, each connected to a moving plotting machine at the far end of the gallery space. Over time, the plotting machine and suspended strings gradually move each piece of organic matter, slowly marking the white wall behind, smearing, decaying, breaking apart, and bumping into each other. Through Gates Unseen translates the plotting machine into a custom built percussion ‘staff’ as a force that dictates the unfolding of music activity. Sheer blocks of sound echo the separated but interdependent panels of charcoal and branches that gradually erode over time, while the smearing of line and ornamentation resemble the blurred black and ochre shadow left by the organic material upon the white gallery wall behind.
Below is the introduction that was pre-recorded for the opening of the concert with some footage of Robert Andrew’s incredible Tracing inscription.
You can read a little more about both mine and Zakiya Leeming’s experiences in the LPO Young Composers Programme in this Resonate Magazine interview here: https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/debut-sounds-with-the-london-philharmonic-orchestra
Thank you to the members of both the LPO and Foyle Future Firsts, especially Martin Wray and Chris Vettraino for their stunning solos, Karen Hutt for her openness to my percussion ideas, to Brett Dean, Lowri Davies, and Talia Lash for making the whole process so smooth and trouble free, to my colleague Colin Frank for building ‘the staff’ so central to the concept of this piece, and to my mentors Aaron Cassidy, Bryn Harrison, and Mary Bellamy for supporting the development of this work mid-PhD.
Listen to Through Gates Unseen here:
Jakob Bragg 