PROFESSOR BAD TRIPUPROAR WALES NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE

UPROAR.org.uk @UPROAR_Wales

UPROAR Funders 2019-2020We would like to thank our funders and supporters who made this programme possible:

Arts Council of WalesDiaphoniqueFoyle FoundationGarfi eld Weston FoundationHinrichsen FoundationItalian Cultural InstituteOakdale TrustPRS FoundationThe Stafford House FoundationTŷ CerddRVW TrustWales Arts International

DonationsPrivate donation in memory of Peter ReynoldsPeter Golob Pyrenees Cycle Ride FundSally GrovesProfessor Mick Peake

UPROAR gratefully acknowledges the kind support of Electroacoustic Wales, Tessa Shellens, Michael Ellison, Andrew Rafferty

“…virtuosic, exuberant and playful” ****On UPROAR’s 10x10, The Guardian 2018.

Charity Registration Number: 1174587

TheOakdale

Trust

ABOUT UPROARUPROAR is the new contemporary music ensemble for Wales. Led by conductor Michael Rafferty, the ensemble comprises some of the UK’s most accomplished musicians specialising in new music. Committed and hungry to bring the most raw, adventurous and imaginative new music from Welsh and international composers to audiences in Wales and the UK.

Professor Bad Trip is the second project from UPROAR which launched in 2018 with its inaugural sell-out performance in Cardiff and gained critical acclaim in local and national press.

UPROAR Artistic Director & Conductor Michael Rafferty Michael Rafferty, founder of UPROAR, is an

award winning conductor based in South Wales. Passionate about contemporary culture, he conducts the world’s fi nest contemporary music ensembles and has collaborated with over 100 living composers. He co-founded Music Theatre Wales and was its Music Director for 25 years. He was awarded an MBE in 2016 for services to music in Wales.

PROGRAMMESarah Lianne Lewis we watch it burn*Kaija Saariaho Lichtbogen**Bethan Morgan-Williams Devil’s Elbow*

INTERVAL

Tristan Murail Winter Fragments**Andrew Lewis Canzon in Double Echo*Fausto Romitelli Professor Bad Trip: Lesson III**

RUNNING TIME Approx 1hr 45 mins including interval

*World premiere **Welsh premiere An audio version of the programme is available online, composer notes are also available online and at each venue. Visit uproar.org.uk

ENSEMBLEFlute Richard Craig (Except 13th March) Joanna Shaw (13th March)Clarinet Michael Whight Trumpet/Soprano Trombone Torbjorn HultmarkElectric Guitar James WoodrowPiano/Keyboard Siwan RhysKeyboard Bethan Morgan-WilliamsPercussion Julian WarburtonHarp Manon MorrisViolin 1 Miranda FulleyloveViolin 2 Philippa MoViola Fiona WinningCello Deni TeoBass/Electric Bass Guitar Alan Taylor

Conductor Michael RaffertyLive Electronics Andrew Lewis (Electroacoustic Wales) Tom Rydeard (Electroacoustic Wales) Sarah Lianne Lewis Bethan Morgan-Williams Lighting Ceri James

Ensemble Manager Charlotte Templeman (Except 25th April) Laura Sheldon (25th April)

Marketing Suzanne Carter Tabitha MilnePress Hazel HardyAdministrator Caroline Tress

Board Professor Michael Ellison Sally Groves MBE Professor Mick Peake

Sarah Lianne Lewis we watch it burn (Jan 2020)

Studied at University of Wales, Cardiff BA (Hons) 2:1 in Music & HistoryMMus in Composition.

Sarah has previously worked with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Quatuor Bozzini, JACK Quartet and Mivos Quartet, UPROAR, and soprano Sarah Maria Sun, and her music has been performed in a number of UK and European music festivals, including Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Heidelberg Frühling Festival, soundfestival, Musiikin Aika, Festival de Royaumont, Archipel Festival and Lucerne Festival.

Bethan Morgan-Williams Devil’s Elbow (Nov 2019)

Bethan Morgan-Williams (1992-) is a Welsh composer based in Montgomeryshire. She composes instrumental, vocal and electronic music for people of all ages and abilities, fi nding motivation through the simple urge to provide performers with new and exciting music.

Described as “marvellously oblique and obscure” [5against4] while being “rooted in something ancient and folky” [The Telegraph], Bethan’s music is fl uid and expressive. In her short composing career, Bethan has accrued a signifi cant number of prestigious awards, including a Leverhulme Scholarship (2018-9); the Susan Bradshaw Composer

Prize (RPS – 2017-8); the Christopher Brooks Composition Prize (Young Composer in Residence with the RLPO) (2015-7); and the LSO Panufnik Scheme (2015-6). She was shortlisted for ISCM World Music Days (2019 & 2020); a Paul Hamlyn Award (2017); and Manchester Jazz Festival’s Irwin Mitchell Prize (2014).

Andrew Lewis Canzon in Double Echo (Jan 2020)

Andrew Lewis studied composition with Jonty Harrison at the University of Birmingham, where he was one of the founding members of BEAST. He is Professor of Composition at Bangor University, where he also directs the Electroacoustic Music Studios.

His music has been awarded prizes in France, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, and the UK. Recent projects include ‘Lebenslieder’ for chamber orchestra and electronics, which includes the voices of people with dementia and their partners who care for them. His chamber work ‘Etude aux objets’ was commissioned by UPROAR for the inaugural project 10 x 10. His scores are published by Composers Edition (UK) and his acousmatic music by Empreintes DIGITALes (Canada).

COMMISSIONED COMPOSERS FROM WALES

Tristan Murail Winter Fragments (2000)

Born in Le Havre in 1947, Tristan Murail received advanced degrees in classical and North African Arabic from the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes, as well as a degree in economic science, while at the same time pursuing his musical studies. In 1967, he became a student of Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory, and also studied at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris. In 1971, he was awarded the Prix de Rome, and later received a First Prize in composition from the Paris Conservatory.

He co-founded the Ensemble L’Itineraire with a group of young composers and instrumentalists in 1973. The ensemble quickly gained wide recognition for its fundamental research in the area of instrumental performance and live electronics.

In the 1980s, Tristan Murail used computer technology to further his research in the analysis and synthesis of acoustic phenomena. He developed his own system of microcomputer-assisted composition, and then collaborated with Ircam for several years, where he taught composition, and took part in the conception of the computer-assisted composition program “Patchwork”. In 1997, Tristan Murail was named professor of composition at Columbia University in New York, teaching there until 2010.

Kaija SaariahoLichtbogen (1986)

Kaija Saariaho is a prominent member of a group of Finnish artists who are making a worldwide impact. She studied in Helsinki, Fribourg and Paris.

At IRCAM, Kaija developed techniques of computer-assisted composition and acquired fl uency in working on tape and with live electronics.

Kaija’s work includes Verblendungen (1984), Du Cristal (1989), and …à la Fumée (1990), Orion (2004), Laterna Magica (2008) and Circle Map (2008). Her catalogue also includes Aile du songe (2001), Notes on Light (2006), D’OM LE VRAI SENS (2010), Maan Varjot (2014). In 2015, Gerald Finley and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, premiered True Fire for baritone and orchestra.

From later nineties, Saariaho has turned to opera, with outstanding success: L’Amour de Loin (2000), Adrian Mater (2006), Emilie (2010) and the oratorio La Passion de Simone (2006). Her opera Only the Sound Remains was premiered in March 2016 at The Dutch National Opera. Other performances will follow in Paris, Helsinki, Madrid and Toronto.

Saariaho has claimed the major composing awards: Grawemeyer Award, Wihuri Prize, Nemmers Prize, Sonning Prize, Polar Music Prize.

COMPOSERS OF THE OTHER WORKS IN THE PROGRAMME

Kaija Saariaho’s harp concerto Trans was premiered in August 2016 by Xavier de Maistre and The Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ernest Martinez-Izquierdo at the Suntory Hall, Tokyo.

Fausto RomitelliProfessor Bad Trip: Lesson III (2000)

One of the most promising of the young generation of Italian composers, Fausto Romitelli, born in Gorizia in 1963, died prematurely in 2004 after a long illness.

He fi rst studied under at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and later at the Scuola Civica in Milan. His works include: Ganimede (1986), for alto, and Kû (1989), for 14 musicians.

In the 1990s, he continued his investigations of sound at Ircam in Paris, and with the musicians of L’Itinéraire—Tristan Murail, Gérald Grisey, Michael Lévinas and Hugues Dufourt.

Anything but a formalist composer, Romitelli did not shy away from hybridization, breaking down the barrier between art music and popular music. Distortion, saturation, psychedelic rock—inspired compositions and “dirty” harmonies were part of his musical universe, evident in Acid Dreams & Spanish Queens (1994), for amplifi ed ensemble, EnTrance (1995), and Cupio Dissolvi (1996). The Professor Bad Trip cycle (I, II and III, 1998—

2000), blending distorted colorations of acoustic and electric instruments as well as accessories like the mirliton and harmonica, was inspired by Henri Michaux’s writings under the infl uence of psychedelic drugs, and recreates a hallucinatory atmosphere.

28.02.2020 – 7.30pmChapterCardiffchapter.org029 2030 4400

13.03.2020 – 8pmAberystwyth Arts Centreaberystwythartscentre.co.uk01970 62 32 32

21.03.2020 – 7.30pmGaleri, Caernarfongalericaernarfon.com01286 685 222

25.04.2020 – 4pmBristol New Music FestivalVictoria Rooms, University of Bristolbristolnewmusic.org

03.06.2020 – 7pmFestival KLANG! électroacoustique Opéra Comédie, Salle MolièreMontpellier, Franceopera-orchestre-montpellier.fr

Victoria Rooms, University of Bristol