PROJECT Trio Composition Competition
And the winner is....
Andrew Wilson - Rapid Transit
When I sat down to compose my piece for Project Trio, my first task was to get a feel for the ensemble itself and to determine the musical personalities of its individual members. As I watched their stunning videos and listened to the recordings, the first thing I felt was awe at PT’s consummate virtuosity: I knew that these musicians could take anything I threw at them, in terms of technical challenges! The other thing that struck me was the way the trio expressed the urban spirit with their restless bustle and movement. It wasn’t long before an imaginary story board took shape in my mind’s eye of a trio of city commuters making their journeys to work. Throughout the piece, they hurry and jostle, run and dodge; all the time with one eye on the clock! They scoot along the sidewalk, dive into dark subways, scurry up stairways and clatter across bridges. There are passages of comparative calm as they are whisked through the city in buses, trains and cabs, only to be disgorged into the hurrying stream of humanity once more. I hope that the listener will feel part of the breathless rushing and sigh with relief as the travellers arrive at their destination with seconds to spare!
Andrew Wilson's music has been performed all over the world, from London’s famous Royal Albert Hall, to the University of Wisconsin. In 2016, his children’s opera “The Green Children” was produced to great acclaim at the Woolpit Festival. 2017 has already seen premieres of various commissions: the concert overture “Hartland Point” for the North Devon Sinfonia; choral and brass incidental music for the Tavistock Passion Play and “Conversation Pieces” for Piano Quintet by the Dante String Quartet with renowned pianist Mark Bebbington. Future plans include “La Rosace” an organ work for Notre Dame Cathedral Paris, a Requiem to commemorate the end of World War One in Plymouth Minster and a large scale choral work on the subject of the Pilgrim Fathers, for the 400th anniversary celebrations of the sailing of the “Maylower”, in the port of Southampton. He lives with his wife, in the beautiful English town of Tavistock, on the edge of Dartmoor National Park.
It was a tough decision and we had an incredible runner up....Honorable Mention:
Wendy Dickinson - The Spell That Made The Monster
Wendy Dickinson is a British writer and composer based in the North West, UK. She has written three full length pieces of musical theatre and has had runs on the London Fringe, with her first play Clara at Noon receiving its premier in October 2017 in the finals of the Kenneth Branagh Drama Awards. Wendy has a growing portfolio of commissioned chamber, choral and orchestral works. She also works as a freelance pianist, organist and Musical Director.
This work is inspired by the witches’ spell in Act IV, Scene 1 of Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Three witches meet to concoct a spell to turn Macbeth into the villain that he becomes by the end of the play. They invoke the spirits of fantastical evil creatures and ‘ingredients’ from what they consider the darkest elements of the natural world to build ‘Double, double toil and trouble’. Each instrument represents one of the witches, characterised by the creature each witch first cites: the ‘cello representing ‘the cat’, the bass the ‘hedge-pig’ (hedgehog) and the flute ‘the harpier’ (harpy).The work starts by building the scene of a cave, with drips of water around a bubbling cauldron, and then the thunder rumbles. As each ‘witch’ takes over a section of the work the ingredients of the spell build to the frantic last section, led by the flute. It concludes with a chorus of cackles as the witches delight in the horrors they are about to unleash.