Works

Aphorisms (2019)

Full details here: Aphorisms

A new collaborative performance piece for singer, speakers, instrumentalists, movement and video.

Cristina Grifone, soprano; Kelcy Davenport, speaker; Tilda Borrows, speaker; Kevin Flanagan, speaker, clarinet; Pina Santoro, speaker, piano accordion; William Crosby, guitar; Joe Zeitlin, ‘cello; Ian Mitchell, clarinets; Dominic Lash, double bass; Caitlin Shek, piano; Leo Oakley, violin; Krisztian Hofstadter, electronics, sound projection; Klara Lucznik, movement; James Norton, live video; Justyna Latoch, video, photography; David Ryan, bass clarinet, vibraphone, direction.

Aphorisms 2 – The Modern Monologue (2020)

Listen here: Aphorisms 2 – The Modern Monologue

This is currently a work in progress. It uses a drama textbook of monologues for female protagonists as a source for assembling a libretto of contrasting fragments. These texts act as sparks, or suggestions for compositional structures, each having a certain amount of improvisational freedom within them. Five so far have been composed, using texts by Alan Ayckbourn, Sophocles/Jean Anouihl, Jean Genet, Noel Coward and James Baldwin.

Cristina Grifone, soprano; Kelcy Davenport, speaker; William Crosby, guitar; Leo Oakley, violin; Joe Zeitlin, ‘cello; Dominic Lash, contrabass, David Ryan, direction, editing.

New – Gertrude Stein Piece (2019/2020)

Listen here: New – Gertrude Stein Piece

This piece draws on Stein’s famous repetitions, translating them into both a vocal and percussive mantra.

Kelcy Davenport, Sally Stenton, speakers; William Crosby, guitar; Leo Oakley, violin; Joe Zeitlin, ‘cello; Dominic Lash, contrabass, Justyna Latoch, video, David Ryan, direction, editing.

New/Stein (2020)

Watch here: New/ Stein

New video piece by Justyna Latoch.

Kelcy Davenport, Sally Stenton, speakers; William Crosby, guitar; Leo Oakley, violin; Joe Zeitlin, ‘cello; Dominic Lash, contrabass; Justyna Latoch, video; David Ryan, direction, editing. 

Three Catullus Fragments (2019/2020)

Listen here: Three Catullus Fragments

These three fragments are from the Roman Gaius Valerius Catullus’ epigrams – full of invective and often foul-mouthed, these pieces attempt to translate the emotive play in the tiny selected fragments with long decorative passages for the voice and interspersed with snippets of melodic glimpses. They are scored for voice and two clarinets and form a potential prologue to a longer set of pieces.

Cristina Grifone, soprano; David Ryan, clarinet, bass clarinet.

Here and Now (2020)

Listen here: Here and Now

A version of a piece using Leonardo Sciascia’s poem ‘Here and Now’ (in translation by Angela Leighton from her book ‘Spills’, Carcanet press, 2016). The piece creates a sound environment for the slow recitation of, and responses to, the poem. Sciascia’s poem translation is used by kind permission of Angela Leighton and Carcanet Press.

Kelcy Davenport, Sally Stenton, speakers; Simon Allen, percussion, waterphone; Farah Mulla, Tibetan singing bowls; David Ryan, piano; Luca Innocenti, Organ; Joe Zeitlin, ‘cello and ‘cello arrangements. Scascia’s poem translation is used by kind permission of Angela Leighton and Carcanet Press.