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Piers Hellawell
Hellawell was a featured composer at Rainbow Over Bath 1994-5, and was the Composer in Residence at the 1995 Hilliard Summer School, for which he wrote The Hilliard Songbook. He has a special interest in the Baltic nations, where his own music has also been performed and broadcast, and he has been instrumental in bringing Baltic music and composers to the UK. Piers Hellawell is published by Maecenas Music. Programme Note: Sound Carvings from the Ice Wall My earlier work Sound Carvings from Rano Raraku was composed in 1988; its peculiarities of form and content were the direct result of dilemmas about musical direction that had prevented me from writing a large-scale composition for more than a year. In the vacuum left by my rejection of unmodulated chromaticism, for example, I had not yet described a new harmonic concern. The 'Sound Carvings' concept is one that replaces the more traditional musical discourse, typical of symphonic thought, with a series of undeveloping blocks of sound, each exploring a peculiar set of materials unrelated to any whole. The short movements are thus equivalent to sculptures around a room, or to the stone figures on Easter Island that gave my earlier work its name. I returned to the concept in 1991 with my string quartet The Still Dancers, whose three movements can be performed individually among other works, or even in a rearranged order. Where the first Sound Carvings had 23 movements, exploring all the solo, duo etc. combinations of four players, this ensemble would need well over 50 for the same plan, so I have instead restricted the sections to three main movements and two interludes. As before, the outer movements are tutti - flute, clarinet, viola, 'cello, double bass, percussion and piano - as is the central one, and the two interludes are for smaller combinations. A composer's attitude to musical materials should, I feel, move on a pendulum between exploration and reassessment; to stand still, to assume any musical dimension - 'sitting back and composing' as it were - seems a fatal complacency. My second 'Sound Carvings' finds me in something of the same restlessness as the first. Then, I was denying most everything of my musical past (or thought I was); here, having gone on to formulate some new ground, I am once again aware of a cage to be rattled, of tendencies to be looked at before they become fixtures. The basis of my earlier work had been a private extrapolation from the Balinese Gamelan; the new music owes something to the raw materials of Bulgarian music, so rich in drones, trills and hypnotic melodic repetitions. Thus a further dimension of the 'Sound Carvings' ideal seems to be that a periodic return to some of the music's uncut stones, some fundamentals of material, is in order. Click here for Sound Carvings, Psappha's second CD! First Performance Details The first performance of Sound Carvings from the Ice Wall was given on 19th September 1995 at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, England. The work was performed by Psappha and conducted by Christopher Gayford. Sound Carvings from the Ice Wall was commissioned by the BBC. First Broadcast Details The first broadcast of the work was given on BBC Radio 3 on 7th July 1995 by Psappha conducted by Christopher Gayford. Contact Details Piers Hellawell is Published by:
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Piers Hellawell studied with James Wood and Nicholas Maw. When only 24, he
was appointed Composer in Residence at the Queen's University of Belfast, where
he continues to teach. His works have been commissioned, broadcast and performed
at concerts and festivals all over the world, including the 1989 ISCM Days, the
1992 Lapland Festival and 1993 Antwerpen European City of Culture. Piers
Hellawell's Sound Carvings From The Ice Wall, commissioned by the BBC,
was premièred in Manchester by Psappha in September 1995; the summer of
1995 also saw the premières by Evelyn Glennie at the Cheltenham Festival,
and by Sinfonia 21 at Old Stones New Fires in Sussex. Premières of
commissions in early 1996 were Sound Carvings From The Water's Edge in
the Highland Festival, a piano solo Airs, Waters And Floating Islands
commissioned by the Holst Foundation for Susan Tomes, and the London Première
of The Hilliard Songbook Vol 1 by the Hilliard Ensemble. Piers Hellawell
is currently working on a project for Michala Petri and Evelyn Glennie and the
Northern Sinfonia, for première in Autumn 1997. 1996 also saw other
performances by various artists including Philip Mead, the BBC Scottish Symphony
Orchestra, Madeleine Mitchell and the Ulster Orchestra, the Nossek Quartet and
soprano Alison Wells. Music by Piers Hellawell is currently planned for release
on ECM and other CD labels.Copyright ©2001 Psappha
