Well as I’m sure many of you know, a few weeks ago I got married. For the occasion, along with some arrangements, I wrote a piano piece called “This Day”, for the arrival of my bride, now wife … Wendy. It was played live by one of my groomsmen, Andrew Cochrane. It is a great little piece, only about three minutes long, and because it was something pretty unique, here is a link so you can listen to the full version online.
Enjoy, Ryan
Ryan’s string quartet In Their Light was premiered in Athens today. It was received extremely well by both the quartet and the audience. New projects together are on the horizon. Photo of the premiere below:
Gruppetto String Quartet
Galina Bratuska (violin I), Marouso Kydonieos (violin II), Lilia Giousoupovac (viola), Eygeni Bratuska (bass) – all members of major Greek orchestras
Ryan Youens (New Zealand) – In Their Light (world premiere)
C. Carsavassilis (Canada) – Baroque Revisited (European premiere)
Alexey Kurtijian (Brazil) – La Componessa
Also music by Filip Tsalaxuris (Greece), G. Matzafleris (Greece), Alex Pappas (Greece), Franz Schubert, Dass Dreimeadelhaus.
Artistic Director – Alex Pappas, Administrative Director – Dimitris Tsoutsos
6 Gravias Street, Agia Paraskeyh Pierce Theatre, 8:30pm, 10 November 2008, $18Euro
Hey everyone, well on the 29th May was The Committee’s 2008 Bangers and Mash concert. The point of these concerts is to have composers write music which doesn’t use any conventional notation or instruments … as well as no computers and can be playable by non-musicians. It was great to be involved and it was a fantastic success.
Initially I was completely stuck as what to actually do. I mean there are so many options … using anything that makes a cool sound. An obvious one would be doing something to vegetables. (lol) One night as I was traveling down to Wellington, Wendy (my partner) and I stopped to help a lady change her car tyre. Afterwards we got back in the car and soon after I said “I’VE GOT IT!!”.
So my piece was using five players, their spare car tyre and a pair of drum sticks. There was a set beginning and end, but then in the middle was much more freely organised. There were about six different sounds (or techniques), such as bouncing the stick on the tyre, rubbing it against the tyre to get a “squeaking” effect, and so on. There was a leader and they lead through each of these techniques. Overall creating these wonderful textures. It worked really well and was very well received.
The other pieces were fantastic as well, see below. Looking forward to doing more with “The Committee”.
So the pieces were:
Here are some photos from the day of the premiere as Rakaia was given a final run through: (photos thanks to Neil Shepherd)
Everybody … almost.
Counting like crazy!!
GO CYMBAL GO!
Fantastic percussionists!!
Some of the brass!!
Me giving a few final comments!
Hmmm I look worried.
Well well well. This afternoon was the premiere of “Rakaia” and it went very well. I wasn’t playing in it so could really enjoy it. The percussion finally got it all together and sounding fantastic and the strings got (almost) all of their notes in. Everyone gets a little excited as it goes through … including the conductor, so the tempo pushed a little but overall it was fantastic and had heaps of great feedback from the audience.
Above is a photo of Auckland Symphony during the premiere.
By the way I just want to clarify … it said in the programme that I won the 2006 Young Composer Award. This was in fact not the case, I was commended at these awards. I hope no one is mislead by this. Not sure who wrote my programme bio up.
If any of those reading this went to the concert, I’d love to get your comments and feedback. Please send them through to me here.
I’m looking forward to next week’s concert at the Bruce Mason Centre. For details see the news.
Okay so as per my last entry, yes we spent a good amount of time on “Rakaia” on Wednesday night. It was fantastic. Everyone finally got their head around it (… it seemed so anyway). I think many of the players are not familiar with this sort of music, so it has taken a while for things to sit naturally. Technically it is not too challenging but things just do not sit as you may expect as a player. Anyway after that rehearsal I went home a happy composer.
Then … today was the final rehearsal. We ran it twice and it was FANTASTIC!! I am so pleased with how it is sounding. I’ve been pretty pedantic about how I want it, and only today I felt that all of that paid off. Of course on concert day (tomorrow), it will rise to another notch so I can’t wait.
By the way, if any of the members of Auckland Symphony are reading this, then THANK YOU so much. It is sound fantastic and I know a lot of personal practice and perseverance has gone into it. Many many thanks.
Stay tuned for how the premiere went.
Well we’ve have a few rehearsals now for “Rakaia”. It is definitely coming along nicely. Finally the percussion are getting into it so they are driving it which is fantastic. The violins are getting more notes in every time we play it as well. lol Anyway big rehearsal tonight where hopefully we will be spending heaps of time on it so looking forward to it. Stay tuned …