Output details

"Fantasias for orchestra" (commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra, USA)

The research imperative of "Fantasias" was to probe the limits of musical continuity on a number of different dimensions: the work as a whole; the continuity of its movements; the formal properties within each movement; and the more immediate continuity of musical fragments. (The word “continuity” is here understood by the researcher to embrace the entire continuity-continuum from total continuity to non-continuity.)

The research process included the creation of discrete sonic segments from many different sources and their subsequent manipulation by processes such as electronic modulation, filtering and granulation. A second research process saw segments presented at a number of seminars at international universities and conservatoires with the delegates being asked to predict the short and long term future of each segment. In this way the issue of continuity started to be addressed, a process continued by the researcher who tested various orderings of segments within a piece, and different combinations of segments originating from different sources. These investigative processes gave the researcher a deepened understanding of continuity within musical structures that could still retain an ambiguous nature. "Fantasias" is an artwork/research output that encapsulates and presents this duality.

"Fantasias’" extreme virtuosity is an inevitable result of the need to characterize, as vividly as possible, the wide range of possible materials discovered through the exploration of the continuity-continuum.

"Fantasias" was commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra in 2008 and first performed in 2009. The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain gave the UK premiere during its national tour of 2010 that culminated in a televised Proms concert. The 2011 performance of the work by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski was recorded and is now commercially available. "Fantasias" won the prize for Best New Orchestral Work in the 2011 BASCA Awards and is published by Faber Music.