Alan plays a solo concert for the Frisby Arts Festival. 7:00,
Frisby Parish Church,
Leicestershire
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page last updated 7/6/13
New CD Finally Out!
The result of my collaboration with harpist Eleanor Turner, Elusive Symmetry is an album of new music for harp, guitar and live computer processing. Inspired by the work of M.C. Escher, combining
elements of minimalism, avant-something or other and electronica. For more info check it out here!
The Curl-up featured
A recent piece of mine, The Curl-up for prepared harp and computer, has been chosen as a featured piece at the 2013 USA International Harp Competition and Festival in Bloomington, Indiana.To the right is a little video about M.C. Escher's cute little creature that serves as an intro to the harp piece.
September
2011 An amazing experience...
The final night
of the Sacrum Profanum Festival in Krakow (Poland) found me playing Steve
Reich's "Electric Counterpoint" with live remixing by Aphex Twin
(one of my musical heroes). It was very cool, very bizarre, and sadly I have
a feeling that playing for 5000 people in a giant steel factory filled with
lasers (and Steve Reich on his 75th birthday) is an experience that for me
is unlikely to be repeated...
(No, seriously, I really am the little
speck to the right of Aphex Twin)
The outstanding Cavatina Duo (guitarist
Denis Azabagic and flautist Eugenia Moliner) continues to play the two
pieces they commissioned me to write as part of their "Balkan Project".
These have now been performed throughout the world, and have been released
on CD on Cedille Records (see the Recordings page). This
work is now being taken up by some other duos, and I've recently added
some new movements to the Balkan
Songbook collection. Check them out here!
In further flute
and guitar news, the Cavatina Duo has recently given another two performances of my Concerto for
Flute and Guitar. The piece was premiered at the Guitar Art festival
in Serbia in February 2010, and is in a traditional three movement concerto
structure, drawing inspiration from the music of the two performers' homelands
(Spain and the former Yugoslavia). Since the premiere, the duo has given
further performances of the work with the Traverse Symphony Orchestra
(Michigan), the Sarajevo Philharmonic and at the Monterrey Guitar Festival
in Mexico. The concerto has now been played 6 times in the last year!
Commissions I'm currently working on include new pieces for solo guitar with live computer processing, a piece for prepared
piano, and two further works commissioned by the Cavatina Duo. The first of
these is an arrangment of two movements from my Balkan Songbook for the duo
plus Indian musicians to play on their Summer tour of India. The second is
a set of variations on the Carnival of Venice.