Really thrilled to say that guitarist Tom McKinney is giving another performance of my piece bet maryam in Manchester on June 17th, 7:30pm, at the IABF. It’s part of a larger programme given by the illustrious house of bedlam.
bet maryam was written in 2011 as a sort of casual early experiment for my PhD project at the University of Huddersfield. It’s a short piece - 6 minutes - and explores ideas of instrumental idiomaticity as a way of corrupting and transforming material. [I’ve written about it ad nausea, which you can read some of here if you want.] Consequently, it’s immensely problematic to play and requires huge personal investment on the part of the player(s). The fact that it has gone on to be one of my most performed recent pieces is a bit of a matter of astonishment! Three different guitarists have now taken the piece into their repertoire. It’s been performed at major international festivals, like //hcmf2014 and is being commercially recorded over the summer for the HCR label (part of Diego Castro Maga’s new disc, shrouded mirrors, released November this year). It’s funny how things pan out…
Tom McKinney’s commitment to the piece has been absolutely first class. I missed his last performance of the piece due to frustrating other commitments, but the video is below for all to see. Maybe I’ll see some of your beautiful friendly faces at the IABF in a few weeks time…
Matthew