judithweir
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She was an oboe player, performing with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and studied composition with John Tavener during her schooldays. She blogs about her experiences of cultural life in the UK
judithweir
4d ago
For quite a while I have been writing a new chamber orchestra piece, to be premiered by the Knussen Chamber Orchestra at Aldeburgh this summer. Its title is Planet, and it's a set of three orchestral studies inspired by the increasingly remarkable photographs of our planet, and galaxy, taken by spacecraft over the last thirty years. The images I chose came from Apollo 17, Voyager 1 and the Hubble Space Telescope.
One un-obvious feature of this project was the size of orchestra available. You'd perhaps hope to explore a huge, cosmic subject like this by means of a colossal Richard Strau ..read more
judithweir
4d ago
It is always a visual pleasure, and usually a musical one, to enter Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw, perched over the IJ water. This was my second time as a juror on the Alba Rosa Viëtor Competition, for composers under the age of 35. My previous visit to the competition took place during a force 11 gale blowing huge waves against the glass walls of the building, and the police and fire brigade urging everyone in the whole country to stay indoors. I'll never forget it.
But this year's edition also had its excitements, due especially to the extraordinary lineup for which the competition entrie ..read more
judithweir
4d ago
This year I joined the selection jury for the LSO's Panufnik Composers Scheme. It's a big deal for emerging composers, awarding all kinds of access to the orchestra, so it's understandable that over 200 people applied (six places were available.) Each entrant submitted two scores, so that made well over four hundred, mostly very substantial, recent works for six jurors to absorb.
Luckily, Colin Matthews has directed the programme for nearly two decades (assisted by Christian Mason) and he has devised some nifty maths whereby individual jurors spend a week crosschecking a section of the ..read more
judithweir
1M ago
Amidst all the doom and gloom about music education, I sometimes have the pleasure of visiting a school where music is in full swing. This was certainly the case at Lord Williams's School, Thame where the team of three class music teachers (already an impressive sign) were able to devote a whole two days to my visit, during which I was able to work personally with every music student working for a public exam. There were about sixty of these student composers - it's a big school of course, but nevertheless, this was an impressive cohort, and the subject is just much more enjoyable when plenty ..read more
judithweir
3M ago
Another difficult year for music, when some of our finest classical groups were threatened with the chop. So, having just recently heard Britten Sinfonia and the BBC Singers together in a wonderful performance of the Handel-Mozart Messiah, it's great that they're both currently "firing on all cylinders". Much admiration also for those working to keep Dartington Summer School and Cheltenham Music Festival going in some form next year, hopefully to rise again.
I feel more worried by the mysterious circumstances surrounding the departure of English National Opera to Manchester. And worst ..read more
judithweir
3M ago
My main connection with Aldeburgh came in 1985, when I spent three months living in Red Studio, in the grounds of Benjamin Britten's former home. Peter Pears was still alive (although it was to be his last year on earth) and I vividly remember him walking rather gingerly on a stick through the small orchard outside. That autumn I lived on windfalls from those trees combined with blackberries from the scrubby hedgerows towards the North Sea.
I've only occasionally visited since then, but now that my own music is going to be featured in the 2024 Festival, I've been giving the town and ar ..read more
judithweir
3M ago
Deep in the pandemic period, this innovative amateur orchestra invited me to write a new piece in memory of one of their violinists, Buzzy Murray, a generous person much missed by all concerned, who had died in 2019. At the time, the idea of composing anything seemed rather theoretical or provisional; though at least I did have plenty of time, forced to stay at home with no concerts or in-person events. Somehow in the end I finished a 15-minute symphonic piece, titled New Every Morning. I haven't much memory of how it happened, but whenever full orchestra is concerned, much mental and physica ..read more
judithweir
3M ago
We hardly deserve an artist as intelligent and thoughtful as pianist Imogen Cooper. What a cultured recital she gave at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on this freezing December evening. Who else would start off with a whole half hour of unknown, to me anyway, Bartok Bagatelles (op 14) ? And encore at the end with one of his Four Dirges op 9; a perfect comment actually on the state of the world at the moment.
The evening proceeded via some beautiful Bach transcriptions, a Tom Adès fantasy on Dowland (prior to which the Hall was darkened while we listened to a recording of the original lute so ..read more
judithweir
3M ago
For some years I've visited the A-level students at Vyners School. It's always a pleasure to be in their spacious and relaxed music room - impressively upgraded on this visit - and see what they've been writing. This year I immediately came across a piano-harp duo with ingenious rhythms which I felt like copying down and taking home with me; followed by an impressive composition featuring electric guitar and ensemble, notated in tablature (fortunately switchable by the computer to staff notation for my benefit.)
As ever, I wonder why some schools, like this one, have adventurous, wide ..read more
judithweir
3M ago
RIAS Kammerchor, who have performed my music on several occasions, kindly invited us to their Friday night concert of Estonian composers, in Berlin's Philharmonie. It started off as a rather tricky experience, travelling in from Potsdam on trains which were becoming more and more delayed, and then along roads gridlocked by the state visit of President Erdogan. The surroundings of the Philharmonie are anyway hardly tranquil these days, surrounded by new towers and determined traffic. Finally, a friendly invitation to 'come in by the stage door' caused the usual confusion, and I do have to say ..read more