Patrick Ellis

Most of the significant influences on my compositional journey so far have been from my close colleagues, many of whom I studied alongside during my years at The Royal Conservatoire of The Hague (for my master’s), the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (for my undergraduate degree) and even at Alton College (where I studied my A Levels and had my first experiences with getting my music performed). Of course, like many others, each of my composition tutors had a vital impact on the musician I am today, but I think when you are studying in tight-knit communities like a Conservatoire composition department, where you are also spending time together outside of your studies (sometimes even living with them!), you are inevitably going to become naturally bounce off each other a lot.

Since my masters’ graduation in 2019, I have also been fortunate to have met a lot of inspiring composers and performers who have also made me challenge some of my perceptions and views on music that I was quite stubborn about throughout my studies. Perhaps at my core, not much has changed, but I think I have been more receptive to ideas that I previously did not consider. This is particularly the case in recent years, as I have been fortunate enough to be the co-artistic director (alongside the wonderful Zygmund de Somogyi) of PRXLUDES, which is an online magazine that interviews and promotes emerging and underrepresented composers; in many of my conversations with the artists that I have featured, there have been many ideas that have simultaneously affirmed, but also challenged my beliefs.

After the Covid lockdowns, I began working closely with longtime friend and colleague, Peter Bell and together we formed Open Union, an experimental duo that performs and closely collaborates with different composers from around the world. To date, we have worked with Paolo Griffin, Christine Cornwell, Wilson Leywantono and May Chi, with a new piece by Seán Clancy currently under development. When you are operating under more of a performance/curatorial capacity you see a completely different side to the process of creating and platforming a new work, which I believe that I had previously overlooked; it has certainly made me more aware and appreciative of other performers and has informed me to think about other considerations during the composition process.

I think also worth mentioning that you get particularly interesting perspectives and views from audience members/listeners who are not composers or performers themselves; there have been many times when they have told me that my music reminds me of something unexpected and that has led me to discover new ideas and artists who I would not have previously considered. Those who attend contemporary and experimental music concerts who are not composers or performers themselves need to be protected at all costs!

Each project has its own challenges and pleasures that are unique, however, I think a recurring one in recent years has been trying to carve out the time to compose and then to be productive during that working session.

In recent years, my pieces have begun to incorporate more elements such as fixed electronics, different tunings and visuals, which inevitably makes the whole process of composing longer; admittedly, I have sometimes underestimated the time that it can take to bring each of these components together, but I think that now that I have begun to use these ideas more, I’ve become a bit more efficient and better at managing these slightly more complicated projects.

Another important challenge would be trying to compose something that not only satisfies your own artistic needs but is also enjoyable/stimulating for the performers to play. With the more successful pieces, I’ve often found that there was a good ‘pre-compositional’ process, where that was a back-and-forth dialogue between myself and the performers; I believe that the more there is of this for me, the better the composition.

If someone were to ask me, ‘Can I listen to some of your music?’, without hesitation I would show them Objects and Portrait Projections, which is a piece for objects, visuals and fixed electronics that I wrote for XTRO back in 2021. I think in some ways it’s a nice marker that summarises what I had been exploring in the few years prior, but it also was the start of my experimenting with visuals, objects, and alternative timbres, it was also the start of me incorporating fixed electronics as a more central element to my music.

With more recent works, I’d like to mention Moments of Escapist Thoughts, an audio-visual composition that I wrote towards the end of last year for the trio, Terra Invisus as well as Broken Superficiality (2024) which I composed for Ensemble Klang and Between Two Trios (2022) that was originally written for Kirkos and then later reperformed by the French ensemble, collective lovemusic; both of those pieces were performed at last year’s Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht in The Netherlands.

Honourable mentions go to Fractured Motion (2022), an immersive hybrid installation/concert work for saxophone quartet (performed by the Tantrum Saxophone Quartet), electronics and visuals, which I wrote as part of a Residency for the Dutch series, De Link in Tilburg. There’s also Breath, Patterns, Bends, which I wrote in 2018 for Kathryn Williams’ Coming Up for Air Project, which she has performed many times around different parts of the world (it was more recently included as part of Larry Goves’ Coming Up for Air Concerto) and has also been performed twice by the flautist Tilly Coulton who is a member of the ensemble Standard Issue. It’s also worth mentioning Unfolding Chamber Piece, which is quite an old work by this point, but it’s a piece that I am still proud of and in some ways opened a few doors for me.

My music is often austere, and singular, with an emphasis on small developments and the blending of different familiar, yet unfamiliar timbres together. Usually, the material is centred around a few selected parameters or musical material; sometimes, these ideas are influenced by non-musical themes, but often they are inherently abstract and exist within the confines of the piece.

The methods and my routines with how I work when composing usually correlate to my artistic concerns at the time, but also how my life is at that moment. For example, during my A Levels in the early years of when I began to consider myself as a composer, I would usually go into the music department computer rooms during the lunch break and compose there; all these pieces would have been very intuitive and based around core musical parameters or non-musical ideas that informed the material.

If you were to compare that to the past few years, a lot of my work has become more collaborative, and so I tend to seek out more in-person workshops and meetings to discuss ideas and explore sounds with the musicians that I am working with. A lot of the work still remains in solitude, at home, in a library or a café, but I usually need more influence from the performers as I now prefer to compose a piece for those musicians, rather than a lineup of instruments. When I have made audio-visual works, I have sometimes invited the performers to take part too and that has also proved to be a useful way to get to know who you are working with better in a slightly more natural and spontaneous environment, rather than having a formal meeting over video call or for a coffee.

I’m going to quote an interview you did with Joe Cutler for this series back in 2018: ‘To keep going and to help others along the way.’ When you boil down what being a successful musician is, there isn’t really a better way to put it.

Always stay curious and allow for unexpected moments in your working process. When you build in flexibility when writing, you can often find surprising results that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

I think that most of the ideas/concerns have likely been mentioned by others who work in the classical music industry/community, but certainly, there should be more consistent coverage (in terms of performances, commissions, and press) of underrepresented/disadvantaged composers and performers. What I mean by that is programming a diverse range of backgrounds throughout the concert season rather than during a commemorative event.

Another one worth mentioning, which is particularly more relevant to concerts that feature living composers, is how contemporary classical music is covered; over the years I’ve noticed that a lot of reviews and articles on these events (at least in the UK) are blocked up by paywalls if documentation to these materials are made to be inaccessible, then I think that we aren’t doing ourselves much of a favour. I understand that there can be little money floating around with these sorts of things, but I believe that it is vitally important we try to document and log events/performers and composers as much as possible.

Juggling different professions at once, especially for those who have day jobs outside of the industry. I don’t think that there is zero dialogue about it, but I do believe that there’s also an unspoken rule that you’ve got to just work through it as it’s a privilege to be doing what we do. Most of my friends and colleagues who work in the industry often have other jobs in addition to their performance/composition practice but are expected to be committed and active as though they are working as a practitioner full-time.

There is a privilege with some composers who can work solely as a creative and often get fast-tracked because of the amount of time they have to spend on their practice; I am not knocking those people on a personal level nor trying to discredit their creative output, but there should be less stigma/judgement that they are less of a musician to those who have a slower output/career growth due to other responsibilities (this also includes people who have a family or caring duties).

Currently, I am working on a new audiovisual work with the London-based ensemble Standard Issue which will explore burnout within the music industry; as part of the piece, we shall be including reflections from over 200 different musicians, which will be embedded into the work in some way.

Also in the pipeline is a new long-form work for the two French-Canadian cellists, Laurence Gaudreau and Audréanne Filion (the former whom I met at last year’s Gaudeamus festival), which will utilise alternate tunings that are paired with fixed and live electronics.

I would like to think that in 10 years’ time I would still be composing, performing and curating in some way shape or form and continuing to push my artistic practice further. If I were to stop, I would like to think that it would be due to feeling completely fulfilled by what I have created and achieved, rather than having to be stopped due to circumstances outside of my control.

When working in contemporary classical music, I’ve not only enjoyed the creative side to it, but I have also found a lot of satisfaction through empowering and helping others, whether that be interviewing them for PRXLUDES magazine, workshopping and performing their piece in my duo Open Union, buying their record, attending their show, checking their scores or research papers before the deadline, etc. As the community is so small, it is a case of what you put in you get out.

I think my idea of ‘perfect’ happiness is to have a blend of contentment with their past achievements and a curiosity for the future. When it comes to composition, this blend of contentment and curiosity can lead to some special moments, as you are accepting of what you created in the past and therefore can be more open to experimenting with different procedures during the writing process.

Patrick Ellis (b. 1994, London) is a composer currently based in the UK. His works have been performed across the UK and continental Europe, as well as Malaysia, Australia, and the USA. Patrick studied at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Royal Conservatoire of The Hague; his work has won the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Composition Prize and the Philip Bates Trust Audience Prize, and his pieces have been performed by ensembles such as Orkest de Ereprijs, the New European Ensemble, and the Residentie Orkest. Patrick also writes shoegaze and dream pop-inspired guitar music under the alias Vallé. Patrick spoke to PRXLUDES about his background and education in the UK and The Netherlands, his compositional process, and his records as Vallé.

Patrick Ellis: I started learning the trumpet at the age of 9, and then a bit later was playing in the secondary school jazz and wind bands. Being surrounded by an encouraging department and likeminded peers, I began considering venturing into music more seriously in some capacity in my early teens.

My first real involvement in composition began when I was around 15 years old. At the time, I had recently bought myself a Yamaha keyboard, and was beginning my studies for Grade 5 Theory and GCSE Music. As part of the latter, you had to write two compositions as part of the curriculum anyway. When we were at the stage of making some “practice” compositions, I thoroughly enjoyed the process and was encouraged further by positive feedback from my teacher, as well as peers in and outside of the music class.

At school, there was a choice between two softwares: Sibelius or Cubase. I preferred the latter at the time, as my method for writing involved drawing in the pitches on the piano roll and then adjusting the length of each of them to determine their note value – it was a very digital way of doing things.

When I finished secondary school and began my A-level studies at Alton College, I realised that my practice routine and abilities as a performing musician were not to the same level as some of my peers. In turn, I began to prefer writing my own music much more, over performing works be other people.

The music department at Alton College was really good, and the two teachers — Martin Read and Pande Shahov — were also composers. There had been generally a strong cohort of other student composers in the department. Prior to my studies, Laura Jurd, Hannah Dilkes and Richard Hames — who is now part of Ensemble x.y — were all music students, each who now have some involvement in contemporary music. During my time there (2011-13), there were several other students who were already pursuing and/or interested in composition: Lucy Hale, Alexander Ling, William KZ Hearne, Jess Holland and Dan Cippico — the latter whom is now based in Birmingham.

Having supportive tutors and a strong community made up of other composers really encouraged me to pursue composition further, and having an ad-hoc music group called the Composers Ensemble, which was made up of composers and a few instrumentalists who had been persuaded, it was very much a case of “writing for what there was”.

Definitely, it’s all intrinsically interconnected — you attend a concert, festival, course, scheme or a networking event, and you’re bound to meet someone who shares a mutual connection.

Yeah, that’s right. Funnily enough, when I was doing some interviews for my master’s research, one of the composers/interviewees, Laurie Tompkins, mentioned that his own interest and involvement in contemporary music stemmed from his fascination with left-field intros, outros and interludes that can sometimes be heard on various albums by even some of the more ‘mainstream’ rock bands.

This was also the way that I got into contemporary music, things Pink Floyd’s ‘Interstellar Overdrive’, and the second half of John Frusciante’s first solo record — ‘Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt’ — became the gateway to appreciating the avant-garde and experimental music.

In my first year, I primarily studied with Ed Bennett. Perhaps my most important lesson that I learnt from him was to really focus on my ideas; to be more consistent and coherent, to really narrow things down just a few fundamental things. Prior to my studies in Birmingham, a lot of my music had so many unrelated gestures stuffed in single movement pieces. At first, it was rather daunting to limit my ideas, but it has since become a core trait to my own music.

Going in to my second and third year, I began to pair down my music – writing sparser textures with a lot of sustained notes, somewhat akin to Morton Feldman and the Wandelweiser composers Michael Pisaro and Jürg Frey, but admittedly with a much more naïve execution. Seán Clancy, my main tutor at the time, had been taking found data, objects and materials from non-musical sources and translating/repurposing them into musical parameters for his own concert music (e.g. Forty-Five Minutes of Music on the Subject of Football). I found this approach really intriguing and began to experiment with these ideas in my own work, finding new ways to create different structures and materials.

For the final year of my bachelors’ degree, I switched my composition tutor to Andrew Hamilton, who from the get-go encouraged me to loosen up the way that I wrote music. Over the course of the year, his teaching helped me to put more work into the musical material and its surrounding parameters, as well as making me more aware of how to pace material – i.e. when to repeat, alter/develop or move on to another gesture. Maybe to some that might seem rather fundamental, but at the time I felt that my music had been bogged down by a lot of systems that the listener could not really perceive without a score and a lengthy, tangential explanation.

I took on the attitude that I wasn’t going to be super strict about my ideas; using it as a means to develop something. Rather than “the system is the piece”, the system is creating something which then I may or may not feel free to change and adjust. It became more of a balance between the abstract and the process, using the two together. Basically, I became less picky about things with Andrew. That was really important.

Exactly! From my fourth year in Birmingham, I began to tell myself “I don’t have to have my music completely chained to the system or the process”.

During my studies in The Hague, my writing became increasingly more about using the material as objects and the medium/occasion/ensemble to influence the piece, rather than imposing a removed idea on it. In general, I took the shackles off, but if I did use a process, then I would try to relate it to musical-based parameters; the instrumentation, the duration, the pitches, etc. It stopped being, “I’m going to use the date of birth of the performer to decide the number of notes in this piece”, and instead became “What are the ranges of this instrument? Can I build and develop a progressive underpinning from this?”.

There are still many fantastic composers who use processes as an integral part of their work – Tom Johnson, for example – but they are still informed by the context and medium that they are working with. I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s [a] maturity thing, but you do begin to realise or learn from issues that were in previous pieces.

At the time, both of the Composition Departments had really strong communities, with many inspiring student composers.

During the early years of my studies at Birmingham, there was Maya Verlaak, Luke Deane, Andy Ingamells, Ryan Probert, Richard Stenton, Paul Zaba, and Fang Fang who were in the more senior years of the department at the time and actively involved in putting on events and encouraging the younger students to get involved.

In my year for undergraduate there were only two other composers (Robert Crehan and Wilson Leywantono). We were a tight knit group and over the four years we sort of grew together as composers and individuals. Comparing this to The Hague, my year group was full of eight composers who each had different compositional backgrounds. Some had studied their bachelors in The Hague before, but the majority hadn’t – there was someone from Brazil, someone from Ireland… everyone was coming from different angles and we each had different research projects. I think each of us respected each others’ work, but the influence on each other was much more passive.

From my own experience in The Hague, even first year bachelors’ instrumental and voice students had an appreciation for performing contemporary music. There were a lot more students from around the continent, compared to Birmingham, where the majority of the students were from the UK. Perhaps music education in a lot of mainland Europe has more of an infrastructure to teach younger students about contemporary and experimental music, but it could also be because it was The Hague.

Martijn Padding once said at a talk he did when he visited Birmingham, that in a lot of composition departments at conservatoires or university are like mini-cults in the corner of the building, while in The Hague, contemporary music and composition are integral parts to the whole institution. It’s interesting [to look at] the cultural differences. The infrastructure in The Netherlands supports contemporary music a lot more, there are so many ensembles. Comparing the UK and The Netherlands, there is a difference in how they perceive “the arts”, or value [in] the arts.

Yes, and I think that largely came from elements of popular music. When I was younger, a lot of the classical and modernist music that I was listening to at the time, had slow and subtle development, which then I didn’t appreciate or resonate with.

The fragmentation in my music also comes from an obsession with details; I’ll write some initial material, and then make various permutations of it… I’ll take a fine thing and expand it [in a certain way]. That was very much the thinking of ‘Unfolding Chamber Piece’ – working stage by stage, block by block, getting each element right to how I thought it should be at the time. I think that’s a good example of [my] fragmentation.

There’s pieces like ‘Ruin’ for large ensemble and ‘Components’ for orchestra that are generally a bit more flowing with the material. Both do have elements of fragmentation, but I changed my method slightly for those pieces. ‘Unfolding Chamber Piece’ was much more [to do with] event by event material and interlocking parts, with all of the instruments working as a unit and changing their material together.

My orchestral piece, ‘Components’, had a different method. It was about making a lateral foundation, and then building more flowing gestures and textures over the top of it. For the project, I was assigned a large array of instruments that was based off of [Sofia] Gubaidulina’s ‘Offertorium’, which included five percussionists, two harps and a celeste, alongside large brass, string and woodwind sections. The former selection were used mostly as the lateral foundation for the piece, while the rest of the orchestra acted as an overlay.

The foundation of the piece consisted of combinations of two progressions – each were five chords – and I used every permutation of those twice. There was also cyclical time signature progression [as well]. Part A would be [written] on the time signature I wrote it as, but Part B would be bumped to the bar before. They matched up every so often, but for the majority of the progression they were playing against each other. That was the foundation, and over the top [I was] occasionally pairing the strings, the brass and the winds with the underpinning, but deviating from it be transforming those into short gestures that resembled swells and quick ascending/descending passages. Sometimes, the percussion or core would leap out of the flowing and free parts, and vice versa. That piece was less [to do with] prominent fragmentation, but it’s still definitely there.

Yeah. I think ‘Unfolding Chamber Piece’ was very much [overt] in terms of its fragmentation, but ‘Components’ and ‘Ruin’ were much more of a hybrid between the prominent fragmentation and the use of a more systemised underpinning, with the former being the flowing textures over the top of the foundation.

The piece ‘Shrouded: Together and Against’ — which I composed for Psappha Ensemble’s Composing for… scheme last year — was taking that idea of that foundation, but building a slowly changing, cyclical [motif], and used that to [show] the way the material develops and changes. For example, you would have four [or] five bars of material, [which] would repeat, but for each repetition the first bar of the previous cell would be omitted and a new bar would replace it at the end— this recurred over the course of the whole piece.

Yes, it was, although I think in a lot of my music I focus on a select number of parameters. As you said, when you have more focused parameters, then it is easier to perceive changes in the material, which ‘Shrouded’ was done by using cyclical structures and slowly shifting repetitive material.

The use of the lower register actually came from an earlier solo piano piece that I wrote for Fumiko Miyachi that was part of a project during my final year in Birmingham. It too used the lower register exclusively, but it instead focused on two contrasting materials that were juxtaposed and developed throughout the piece for around fifteen minutes.

With ‘Ruin’ [for Orkest de Ereprijs], I was inspired by two different non-musical sources. The first of which came about during a lesson with Martijn Padding where he mentioned that the sketch material I had written had a melancholic quality to it and reminded him of a ruin. I took this idea further by ‘disintegrating’ elements of the musical material (i.e. detuning the bass guitar string after it had been struck).

The second non-musical source came from an elegy titled, ‘The Ruin’, which is an 8th or 9th century text that depicts a ruined city in England (disputed to be Bath). Being written prior to the great vowel shift and [the] Norman invasion, the poem was written in Old English (Anglo-Saxon English).

Definitely! I liked the idea of using a language that is the ancestor to our own, but is no longer commonly spoken. Rather strangely the surviving manuscript of the elegy was partially burnt in a fire several centuries ago, so even the text itself has been fragmented.

However, I wouldn’t say that ‘Ruin’ is a work that is solely about fragmentation, but inevitably that will be perceived due the nature of the material and the choice of text. I myself have always seen the piece as an exploration with different timbres through the disintegration of material, and the relationship between the foundation in the electric piano and vibraphone, with the short gestures and swells in the rest of the ensemble.

A friend of mine from my studies in The Hague — Robert Coleman — is the artistic advisor for Kirkos, a contemporary music ensemble based in Dublin, Ireland. Last September, they put on a festival named Biosphere, that showcased different artistic responses to climate change and the negative effects of global warming. Robert had approached me a few months prior to the performances, and intrigued by the idea behind the festival, I sent over a proposal.

Each piece that took place for Biosphere had to adhere to a set rules: outdoors, have no printed scores, and relate to climate change in some way. I had this idea of having the ensemble travelling around the city and performing in front of different public clocks over the space of 24 hours.

To relate it to global warming, I took the average global temperature from the past 24 years, tying each year to a clock [in Dublin]. For each movement/clock, the average temperature [of each corresponding year] determined the number of seconds subtracted from five minutes — so over time, the movements in general get shorter, with the record year for the highest global temperature being the shortest movement, and the year with the lowest being the longest in the piece.

As there we were prohibited from having printed scores, I opted for one chord and gave a suggested starting orchestration. The idea was that the musicians would deviate from the starting orchestration as the temperature increases and when the length of each movement got shorter. Aesthetically, it was quite a drone-based piece. It was something that I wouldn’t do regularly, but it came about from the brief and the limitations that were set out for me.

When I write more process-driven or conceptual pieces, I tend to have preference for working with data, stats, numbers, and/or found structures, rather than [looking at] a performance art, stage, or theatrical realisation of the idea. Apart from the performers — and the person filming —people didn’t really perceive [the full picture]. Passers-by would have most likely only caught one of the movements, and they would have never bumped into another one. So only the musicians were the only ones who were perceiving the piece during the performance. It was only when I received the footage and edited it all together that you could see the piece as a whole.

The performances for each movement took place over the course of the week. Most of which was fitted around the musician’s schedules for the other performances in the festival, but it did include a night vigil that took place between 10pm and 6am the next morning. Afterwards, Andy Ingamells and Seán Clancy were performing their piece ‘This Is About’ on the beach, and they had mentioned that the ensemble was all tired because of my piece. It’s kind of crazy that they were performing during the early hours, but they were so dedicated and really made the piece come alive.

I’ve never thought about it in that way, but that’s a very good point.

Yeah, that’s right! Vallé began when I was 18, after I had bought an audio interface to use for home recording purposes. In the spring of 2013, I uploaded a few standalone tracks, before releasing my first four track EP that summer. Back then, it wasn’t really a “shoegaze” project, as I wasn’t really listening to that kind of music at the time. Then and now, I have always considered Vallé as a “side project” that exists outside of my concert music.

After three EPs and a two track release between mid-2013 and mid-2014, I took a break from Vallé for about a year and a half. I don’t really remember why I had a hiatus, but inevitably, when I did finally decide to go back to it, some of my approaches, influences and ideas about Vallé had changed.

In 2016, I put out three releases: An album titled ‘Album’, an EP called ‘Ep’, and a single named ‘Single’. Compared to the earlier Vallé material, there was a lot more reverb and other effects featured on these releases. I wouldn’t say it was heavier, but the production was certainly fuller. At that point in time, I was a bit more public about the project — previously I would just release them, but not make any posts about it on my personal social media accounts. Going into the following year (2017), I was looking for new ways to approach Vallé and one of the avenues that I hadn’t really explored was collaborating with other people. Up to that point I only saw Vallé as a project that I would do everything for – the writing, recording, releasing, etc. – everything apart from the cover art on several of the releases. The first foray into collaboration and working with others was on a track named, ‘Dc’, which Dan Cippico played the bass guitar on. Later that year I released the fifth Vallé EP, ‘Castle and Woodland’, which featured several collaborative tracks – working with Sam Leith Taylor, Peter Bell, and Dan Cippico.

When I moved to The Hague towards the end of that summer, I took another hiatus, largely because it was a new environment. I didn’t have my own place to live until mid-October, despite arriving in The Netherlands at the end of August. I was fortunate to know enough people to sofa-surf for the first seven weeks. But as you can imagine, I did not get much composing done in the first part of the term, and subsequently I spent the rest of the first term feeling a bit disillusioned.

After arriving back in The Hague after the Christmas break, I was looking for ways to get out of my writing block and so I decided to return to Vallé by recording a track a month over the course of the year, resulting in the album, ‘Twenty Eighteen’. I had initially planned for the album to not be a collaborative effort, but a friend of mine — Shannon [Latoyah Simon] — asked me if she could play guitar on one of the tracks, so I said “yeah, of course”. To make things more consistent, I then approached Dan Cippico, Peter Bell, Sam Leith Taylor, and Luke Deane to also collaborate on a few tracks with me.

I wouldn’t say that it was to challenge the way albums are usually released. It was more from the standpoint of doing things slightly differently; rather than shoving 10-12 tracks out in the open at once, why not write and release one each month? Admittedly some of the ideas were drafted several weeks prior to their release date, but for the most part they came together within the month they are named after. To date, ‘Twenty Eighteen’ has been my largest Vallé project.

Peter Bell and I had been talking about integrating him into Vallé as a full-time member, but I quickly learnt after a few attempts that I wanted to still have creative control over the recorded output. So instead, the two of us agreed to set up a new breakaway project that focuses on live performances instead of recordings. It hasn’t fully taken off yet, but we did a performance at the Ideas of Noise Festival last February with composer and vocalist Georgia Denham. We were billed as Vallé at the time, but we now refer to this project as Open Union, which is going to be an electric guitar duo that performs works by other composers and ourselves.

Definitely! At the moment, Peter and I are still working out where exactly Open Union will sit between these facets, but we do know that we want to be working closely with ourselves and other composers that we approach to make new work. Neither of us are proficient guitarists, so we shall be focusing more on exploring timbre and open forms through effects pedals, programmed patches, improvisation and interpretation.

Generally, my music falls under two strands. The first is mostly notated instrumental music that can be performed in both concert/recital halls and alternative venues. The music itself is often characterised by focused material in the form of repetitive gestures, that either deviates away from itself or is juxtaposed with other materials. Increasingly, over the past three or four years, I have taken an interest in integrating more timbral and gestural detail into my instrumental writing.

The second strand of music is largely based around an online only ‘bedroom studio’ project named Vallé. I began it back in 2013 as a means to fill a void that had been left when one of my teenage rock bands split up. However, it has since grown into an extensive project, having released two albums and several eps. Typically, it’s instrumental and heavily guitar driven that utilises ambient, dream pop and shoegaze aesthetics.

For a long time, I viewed the two as completely separate entities, writing my Vallé music in secret during my spare time when I was living in student halls whilst I was studying for a degree in composition. However, I have gradually begun to notice that both strands of music have infiltrated each other, and after suggestions from some friends, I plan to begin a new ‘branch-off project’ of Vallé with friend and fellow composer Peter Bell, that will function in a live capacity, using characteristics from ambient, noise, drone, shoegaze and experimental music – we did a pilot show back in February with composer/singer Georgia Denham and enjoyed the process of working together to create new material – an experience I have not often had since playing in bands as a teenager.

My creative process varies from piece to piece and largely depends on which medium I am working with. In most cases, I begin sketching ideas for the piece based around information related to medium. For example, if it’s a piece for a solo instrument, I research its associations, techniques and repertoire. Then, I take what I have learnt and then make sketches of structures or material that is either central to the final piece or as a means to develop something from it.

On occasions, I do start from a more conceptual starting point, but for that I usually take non-musical elements and try to translate them or integrate them into gestures and/or formal structures.

I have heard a lot of positive things from other composers about the pianist Zubin Kanga and the Irish based Crash Ensemble, so I would be curious to see what it would be like working with either of them. However, I think that it is more important to work and collaborate with people who are enthusiastic about your own work and creating music as a whole, so I would say that I would most like to work and collaborate with other musicians and composers who enjoy performing and creating new music.

Between 2013 and 2017, I studied my bachelors at Birmingham Conservatoire, and then moved to The Netherlands for my masters at The Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, graduating in June last year.

During my time in Birmingham, I was mostly experimenting with different practices and disciplines to see which elements were right for me. The scene at the time was quite a tight-knit community, so it was a fantastic time for a young composer to be exposed to all kinds of work. Towards the end of my studies there, I began to make choices for which contexts that I wanted my music to fit in with, and started to focus on things that adhered to it.

When I was over in The Hague, it was mostly about building on from where I had left of in Birmingham, but refining and pushing it further. Once again, the department and the local scene had a great community, however rather than growing together with the other composers in my year group, we had all come from disparate perspectives, giving a different feel to my studies in Birmingham.

I don’t really have anything concrete planned at the moment, but once things are safer, I hope to meet up with and spend time with friends that I haven’t seen for a long time. It would also be great to work in person with other musicians again.

The internet has impacted the music business in many ways. For a start, it has completely changed the way recorded music is distributed by the record companies and consumed by the public. This has brought upon both a set of positive and negative changes for artists. I won’t go into every aspect, but for the case of each – it has made eclectic music more accessible and easier to distribute. On the other hand, however, it removed a lot of artist’s potential earnings from record releases. This change in the classical world has arguably not had as big of an impact as artists working in popular music, but it has still had a negative effect.

I will confess though that had music not been as accessible as it has been for the past ten to twenty years or so, then I may not have decided to be a composer or have pursued music for as long as I have.

I don’t really have a favourite piece or composer to perform per se, rather a favourite type of music to perform. For the past few years, I have enjoy playing electric guitar the most, and although I’m not a technically proficient performer, I love the opportunity to create sounds through the instrument, amp, effects pedals and any accessory to alter the sound of the instrument.

During my studies in Birmingham, I was an active member of the department’s Creative Ensemble which devised and performed pieces that were openly notated by members of the group. I do enjoy performing music that allows for flexibility and interpretation over more prescriptive notation– the opposite to my preferences when I compose.

It’s perhaps not the best piece of advice, but it has certainly been one of the most valuable – being a composer, is something for the long haul, it is not something that happens in a quick flash.

There are many things that I would change about the industry, but for the purpose of the interview, I will only mention a few things:

I think any stigma towards artists and musicians who have jobs outside of the arts should stop, it should be about the work you create, not whether or not your job is in the arts.

More diversity in concert programmes, events and opportunities should be encouraged, I have seen some organisations making changes to be more inclusive, which is encouraging to see.

Have more opportunities for composers over the age of 30, that doesn’t mean removing opportunities for young people, but helping more composers who either started writing later on or are developing their practice would benefit from the same support as under 30 year olds.

Revaluate the streaming model and pay artists more per play.

I am currently in the process of writing a new piece for the Netherlands based percussion trio, Xtro. It’s going to be collaborative and will feature electronics, projections and some non-musical elements. In October, a piece that I composed for solo viola earlier this year will be recorded as part of an upcoming release for Birmingham Record Company.

Don’t burn yourself out unnecessarily, sometimes we can’t afford not to (for example when you have a lot of deadlines), but when you can, take time for breaks and rest. Always try to evaluate the work you are making and see if it is how you want it to be. Music and art in general is a very broad discipline and there are many avenues and ways to go about it, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Commit to and dedicate yourself to the things that are important to you.

So I have a few things in this year’s No Frontiers Festival.

On the first day I have two premieres: Wnd Qntt which is to be played by the Lumos Quintet at 3pm in the 6/8 Kafé and Unbranded Ensemble Piece which will be performed 315 Ensemble at 8pm. As with explaining these two pieces, I don’t really want to give much away, so to find out – come along!

Then on the 31st at the Parkside Building, the Composition Department’s Creative Ensemble will perform a set of works composed by the ensemble members, this includes my Riaan’s Trilogy, which is a set of three open score pieces (Riaan’s Rag, Riaan’s Rant and Riaan’s Return) that I composed in 2014, 2015 and 2016, which is dedicated to Riaan Vosloo, the director of the ensemble. The Trilogy features the ensemble singing, electronic manipulations of ‘rants’ and a section with a bass groove.

On the final day of No Frontiers (the 1st of April), I am a part of the Vivid Trip event at Vivid Projects, in Digbeth which features performances and installations by Roché van Tiddens, stenton.press (Richard Stenton), Oliver Mack, Kolbitr (Robin Morton), Susannah Self, Andy Ingamells, Peter Bell & Cam Athanasiades, Wilson Leywantono, Dan Cippico and myself. My installation is a new presentation of field recording piece that recorded edited in 2013 titled, The Streets of Birmingham. It was one of the first pieces that I composed when I was a first year, so it’s fitting to have this featured as the last piece of my last Frontiers Festival as an undergraduate.

With regard to what makes the performances happen it’s the people who have curated the events and the festival. So a huge shout out to Tom Earl, Chris Cresswell, Riaan Volsoo, Cam Athanasiades, Peter Bell, Wilson Leywantono, Dan Cippico and the Frontiers team for organising these projects! Without them there would really be no Frontiers.

Some people think that music is universal, so perhaps that is how it breaks down barriers. However, I don’t think all of it is, so the music that is ‘not universal’ either helps people escape or bring to light universal themes.

I could talk about this for years and really bore people, but I particularly like the sparse sounds of Laurence Crane, Jürg Frey and Michael Pisaro. I admire how they stick to a minimal means of material and work with it inside out. It’s a cliche phrase, but sometimes you’ve got to work within limitations, I think that way one is more imaginative.

Moving towards the ‘popular’ music realm, I have admired Bob Dylan for a long time, particularly his output from the 1960s, which evolved at a fast and organic rate despite disapproval from fans (for example, the constant boos and shouts that he was Judas during his 1966 concerts). If he had stuck to his political folk music, then more artists signed to a label would perhaps not be brave and just follow what the record label executives believe would sell more.

Also the Kinsella brothers (Tim and Mike), who were and are part of many Chicago based bands/monikers from the mid-1990s to the present day. These range from the acoustic sing-songwriter project, Owen (Mike Kinsella) to the erratic sounds Joan of Arc (a band fronted by Tim Kinsella). I admire the fact that the two of them have produced such a large discography that is very diverse and have continued even when the critics dislike something (for example, Pitchfork once rated a Joan of Arc album 1.9/10). If you stick to one thing, you might be building barriers around yourself and others.

Finally, I admire my friends, colleagues and tutors who are/were part of the Conservatoire Composition department and the Birmingham New Music scene (particularly the Post Paradise concert series), there are too many names to mention here, but there are pieces that I have heard and seen, which have really challenged what I perceive as music.

I have felt a guilt and a responsibility, however up to this point, I have not composed something that overtly represents or interprets any current social or political issues.