The second in a series of winter piano concerts from John Tilbury performing lesser known repertoire. Following on from his performances of Samuel Beckett’s final prose piece Stirrings Still, alongside Dave Smith's Al Contrario in December, Tilbury presents works from British composers Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons.
PROGRAMME
- First Prelude (1971) - Howard Skempton
- 4 pieces for left hand:
Senza licenza (1974)
Invention (1974)
passing fancy (1975)
Chorale (1976) - Howard Skempton
- Jive (1996) - Michael Parsons
- Oblique Pieces 1-7 (1996-2006) - Michael Parsons
- 3 Nocturnes (1995) - Howard Skempton
- Fourths and Fifths (1982) - Michael Parsons
- Jive 2 (1996) - Michael Parsons
- Resister (2002) - Howard Skempton
INTERVAL
- Oblique Piece 12 (2011) - Michael Parsons
- A Perugia (1991) - Howard Skempton
- Triptych (1995) - Michael Parsons
- 11 Reflections (1999-2002) - Howard Skempton
- Piano Piece May 2003 - Michael Parsons
JOHN TILBURY / piano
British pianist John Tilbury is renowned for his remarkable touch and in constant demand as an interpreter of piano pieces by composers such as Morton Feldman and John Cage. During the 1960s, Tibury was closely associated with the composer Cornelius Cardew, whose music he has interpreted and recorded and a member of the Scratch Orchestra. He is also an incredible improvisor, most famously as a member of legendary British group AMM.
Howard Skempton is a professional composer whose works have been published by Oxford University Press since 1994. His best known work is "Lento" (1990), commissioned by the BBC for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and was performed at 2010 BBC Proms. Much of his music is available on CD. The Oxford University Press website includes discography, a biography and details of recent compositions. He is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music.
'Only the Sound Remains' was shortlisted for the 2011 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards. The piece, a large scale composition for viola and chamber ensemble, was written for the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and had its premiere in 2010. Howard has had previous success at the Awards with his string quartet,Tendrils, written for the 2004 Huddersfield Festival. It won the Royal Philharmonic Society award for chamber-scale composition. Tendrils also won the Chamber Music category in the BBC Radio 3's British Composer Awards. 'The Moon is Flashing' won the 2008 award in the vocal category.
Howard has continued to compose choral music, including an Advent antiphon for Merton College Oxford and anthems for Chester and Wells Cathedrals.
MICHAEL PARSONS
Michael Edward Parsons (born 12 December 1938) is a British composer. Since the 1960s, when he met Cornelius Cardew and helped found the Scratch Orchestra, Parsons has been strongly associated with the English school of experimental music. He was born in Bolton and studied at St John's College, Oxford before taking up composition lessons under Peter Racine Fricker at the Royal College of Music in London in 1961. In the 1960s he met Cornelius Cardew; Parsons attended Cardew's experimental music classes at Morley College since 1968. In 1969 Cardew, Parsons and fellow composer Howard Skempton founded the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental free ensemble devoted to performing contemporary music. The Orchestra broke up in early 1970s, partly as a result of the politization led by Cardew. Parsons was among the Orchestra members who refused to be associated with Marxist politics Cardew was propagating, and left. In 1970 Parsons started working as visiting lecturer in the Fine Art department of the Portsmouth Polytechnic and in the Slade School of Art, University College London. In 1974 he and Skempton formed a duo to perform their own works. In 1996–1997 Parsons was a bi-fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge. During this time he organised concerts at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge. Since the early 1960s Parsons has also been active as a writer on music; his writings include a number of important articles on contemporary English composers.
Parsons' music is influenced by Anton Webern, composers of the so-called New York school (John Cage, Morton Feldman and Christian Wolff), various English composers he met through Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra, and, since the Portsmouth years, "Systems" artists such as Malcolm Hughes and Jeffrey Steele.
