News

Beautiful new score from Faber Music marks Scottish premiere of Suckling’s acclaimed Candlebird

The first performance of Music Department Lecturer and SCO Associate Composer Martin Suckling’s Candlebird, songs to texts by prominent Scottish poet Don Paterson, was greeted with a wave of critical enthusiasm: ‘staggeringly assured’ (The Sunday Times), ‘luxuriously imaginative’ (The Times), ‘superbly accomplished […] the intertwining of voice and instruments is immaculate, the musical language, in which microtones coexist comfortably with long melodic lines and expressively potent harmony, is utterly surefooted.’ (The Guardian).  

This evocative song cycle now travels north of the border for a series of performances given by the SCO and Mark Stone (baritone), conducted by Nicholas Collon.  Concerts in St. Andrew’s Younger Hall (Feb 25), Glasgow’s City Halls (Feb 27) and Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall (Feb 28) see Candlebird paired with Brahms’ Serenade No. 1 and Britten’s arrangement of Mahler, What the Wild Flowers Tell Me.

To mark the occasion, Suckling’s publishers, Faber Music Ltd, have released a beautifully engraved edition of the score, available now from the Faber Music Shop and other retail outlets.  All Suckling’s published scores are available to peruse online absolutely free at the Faber Online Score Library.

Education and outreach are priorities for both Suckling and the SCO.  As has become the norm during Suckling’s tenure as SCO Associate Composer, each performance will be preceded by a public Q & A with the composer.  Suckling is also joining forces with award-winning animateur Luke Crookes to devise a new piece written and performed by students from Waid Academy, Bell Baxter High School, and St. Leonard’s School.  Offering students a unique opportunity to delve inside Candlebird and expand their own creative practice, this exciting new piece will be developed across an intensive weekend of workshops with Suckling and Crookes and receive its first performance on 25th February.

Suckling is currently working on a clarinet trio for Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and Mark Simpson, commissioned by the Aldeburgh Festival for performance in June 2015.

  • National Radio of Finland Simaku broadcast available online

    Following the success at the 2019 International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM)  – World Music Days , Thomas Simaku’s most recent work, La Leggiadra Luna for mixed choir a cappella, has been broadcast by four European radio stations.

  • Current and former students selected as 2019-20 RPS Composers

    The Royal Philharmonic Society have announced the latest members of their prestigious Emerging Composers scheme, including Robin Haigh, currently studying for a PhD at York with Martin Suckling, and Joel Järventausta, a former York undergraduate.

  • Martin Suckling on Radulescu at IRCAM

    Back in June Martin was invited to speak about Radulescu’s seminal solo viola piece Das Andere alongside violist Garth Knox at the Spectralisms conference in IRCAM.

  • Neil Luck features in 2019 BBC Proms

    Praise for Music Dept students featured in BBC Proms
     
    Following on from his specially-commissioned Radio 3 takeover to extend the Last Night of the Proms 2018, Music Department PhD student Neil Luck was invited to contribute a live set as part of 2019’s first ‘Proms at…’ event.  Joined by second year undergraduate Rebecca Burden and former student James McIlwrath, Neil masterminded three pieces in an event described by the Guardian as a ‘teasing, challenging new-music bill’.  Proms at …

  • Andreas Tsiartis a winner in Discovering Young Composers of Europe

    His new work will be performed by four different ensembles in four European cities and released on CD in 2020

    The objective of Discovering Young Composers of Europe (DYCE) Competition was to bring together the four regions of Europe (North, South, East, West) by inviting the composition students and alumni of all European Academies, Conservatories and Universities to submit a work.

  • Thomas Simaku selected for the ISCM – World Music Days 2019

     

    His work will be performed by a Grammy Award-winning ensemble

    Thomas Simaku’s recent work, La Leggiadra Luna for mixed choir a cappella, has been selected by the international jury for performance at the 2019 ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music)  – World Music Days, which takes place in Estonia from 2 – 10 May.