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Snowbound

“Snowbound” was commissioned by the long-established new music ensemble Gemini and was premiered by them (Huw Watkins, Ian Mitchell and Sophie Harris) in Bristol in February 2011. Mitchell and Harris, together with Matthew Rickard, subsequently recorded the work for CD (Toccata Classics TOCC CD 0150).

The research context for this work was how to write for the (for me) unfamiliar combination of bass clarinet, cello and piano and in particular how to navigate the relationship of the bass clarinet and the cello – instruments of almost identical range, but of differing timbres. The research process encompassed workshop sessions of passages of the work, in combination with music composed for the same instrumental line-up by postgraduate students (the Gemini ensemble making regular visits to Bristol’s Music Department as one of its ensembles-in-residence).