Tag Archives: 2008

Excavations

Excavations was written in re­sponse to the Manchester Camerata Young Composers’ Project, calling for works in­spired by Henry Purcell’s Fantazias to mark the 350-year an­niversary of his birth. I ar­rived at the music after close study of these works, in par­tic­ular the 4-part Fantazia in A minor (Z. 740). Some of the 17th-Century har­monic and […]

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Intensifications

Partly an ex­per­i­ment in tex­tural and nota­tional pos­sib­il­ities, Intensifications, for 2 vi­olas and cello, is in three short move­ments. Over the course of the work we move through a spec­trum of pitched to un­pitched sounds and back again, pushing the in­stru­ments’ sonic pos­sib­il­ities to the edges of aud­ib­ility and con­ven­tional tech­nique. Each move­ment is governed […]

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Detached Thought #100

The Night is also a re­li­gious con­cern  –  and even more so  –  when I viewed the Moon and Stars through Herschell’s tele­scope  –  and saw that they were worlds.  –  ” — Lord Byron, from Detached Thoughts, Pisa c. October 1821. These few words, jotted down for no-one other than the au­thor him­self, seem far more tender and thoughtful than any of […]

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3 Sunsets

Written for Sebastian Grand, 3 Sunsets is made up of three sharply con­trasting mini­atures aimed at es­tab­lishing at­mo­spheric vign­ettes and ex­amining various as­pects of con­tem­porary piano tech­nique. Each mini­ature ex­am­ines ex­tremes of speed and dy­namic in a some­what ali­en­ated, but hope­fully ghostly land­scape. 3 Sunsets was premiered on November 21 2008 by Sebastian Grand in […]

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Books of Moses

My first tape piece, Books of Moses ap­proaches is­sues of cre­ativity and the col­lective con­scious­ness. I wanted to ex­amine the pro­cess by which sym­bols are as­sim­il­ated and re-used by cul­tures and the piece de­velops opening ma­terial to­wards a new place un­mis­tak­ably rooted in the past. Sound sources in­cluded car­riers of se­mantic data such as books, […]

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  • Microbiography

    Chris Swithinbank is a British-Dutch com­poser who works with both acoustic in­stru­ments and elec­tronic sounds. He is cur­rently a stu­dent at Harvard University with Chaya Czernowin.
    Full Biography »

  • Hear