Programme B
Deirdre Gribbin | How to Make the Water Sound, 1997

Deirdre Gribbin was born in Belfast in 1967. She studied composition at Queen's University, Belfast with Kevin Volans, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Robert Saxton and in Denmark with Per Nørgaard and Bent Sørensen. She was awarded the Yorkshire and Humberside Composers' Prize in 1991, won first prize in the IMRO/ Feis Ceoil Composers' Competition in 1995 and was appointed 'Northern Arts Composing Fellow' in 1997. Awards from the Arts Councils of both the Republic and of Northern Ireland enabled her to complete a residency in Denmark.
She has received commissions from, amongst others, Almeida Opera, Saarbrucken Orchestra, COMA, London Arts Board, Northern Arts, Park Lane Group, Stuttgart Arts Council and Composers Ensemble.
Her music has been performed at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Gaudermus Festival (Holland) and by the London Sinfonietta, Ondine, London Brass, the Smith Quartet and Joanna MacGregor.
In 1988 she was commissioned by Almeida Opera to write Hey Persephone! which was premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival in the same year.

How to Make the Water Sound is the second in a sequence of water inspired music. Many images of water combined in the initial stages, but the biggest influence for me was the actual remembrance of water sounding and the context of these remembrances gives a specific energy to the music.

"Artemis: water that which reflects reality back to the onlooker"
from The Song of Eve, M.D.Masscetti

"If you were to listen from dawn until dusk you would not hear it"
Thomas A.Clark

Deirdre Gribbin

Programme A
Rohan Stevenson | Movie Demons (Piano Trio No.2), 1998

Rohan Stevenson was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1970 and started his musical education when he was eight. He won a scholarship to Perth Modern School of Music and went on to study clarinet and composition at the University of Western Australia, working with the composer Roger Smalley.
In 1994 Stevenson came to London and since then his music has had numerous performances in the UK and abroad. One of the first performances was the premiere of his string quartet In the Deepening South at the South Bank Centre in London, given by the Lyric Quartet and subsequently recorded for CD. His diverse musical interests have seen Stevenson win places on the International Course for Choreographers and Composers, which lead to his interest in music for ballet and film, and to the National Film and Television School where he is currently studying.
Stevenson's music reflects the broad range of his interests from folk music, neo-baroque and jazz/rock to authentic classical performance as well as being aware of and responsive to current thinking in modern concert music. He has received commissions to write for ballet, film, schools and concerts. Recent works include Big Cheese and Off the Rails for chamber orchestra, Picture a Summers Day for youth string orchestra, a cantata Moments in Time, Prelude and Toccata for Piano and Movie Demons for piano trio.

Movie Demons was written shortly after the release of my first CD 'Earthworks' and the title reflects my current fascination with the role of music in film. Broadly speaking, the piece draws its ideas from characterisations of the individual instruments within the group. The violin part wants to be a tango, the cello part would prefer to be jazz and the piano is frustrated baroque music. I haven't taken this concept too literally, it was merely a tool to help me create tension between the parts. The three movements also reflect (albeit vaguely) the three styles - running baroque, jazz and tango - again simply to guide the thinking. Its relationship with film music is virtually negligible in terms of style but characterisation is an important and interesting part of writing for film and it is that technique with which I am having a little fun in this work.

Rohan Stevenson