Adopt a Composer: celestial wobbling

Rob Jones reflects on the early challenges and rewards of writing his new Adopt a Composer piece for The Edge Chamber Choir.

The past few months working on my piece with The Edge Chamber Choir in Ludlow have been personally challenging and enlightening in equal parts. Together with Director Ros Crouch, and other choir members, we settled on the theme of 'spacewalks' in our very first workshop, and this has helped me shape both the sound and structure of my piece.

In January, I was lucky to spend some time workshopping what will become the second movement of my piece for the choir. This movement is a musical representation of a spacewalk itself, with a calm cycling motion that carries the music forward. In our very first workshop, I worked on generating some text about spacewalks with the choir members. It was great to be able to use these words in this movement, and to hear them singing the words they themselves had written!

I had decided in the next workshop in January to leave some notes without any words at all, as I had many gaps in the music for which I was struggling to conjure the right words. Fortunately, some excellent suggestions came from both Ros and choir members, and this movement will now end with the long, haunting repetition of the word, void.

In our very first workshop, I worked on generating some text about spacewalks with the choir members. It was great to be able to use these words in this movement, and to hear them singing the words they themselves had written!

In the weeks since the last workshop in January, and as I look towards our next workshop in March, I've had a mid-piece wobble. I find this is always a critical time in any piece I write, and is the point where I am convinced everything I have written is terrible and that I should scrap every note.

On reflection, and after encouragement from Ros, I’ve managed to get over the hill, and I'm back in a creative mindset again. Something that has really helped me to get over the bump and see the structure for the overall piece has been the possibility of including a celeste (think of Hedwig’s theme in the Harry Potter  films for how this twinkly instrument sounds) in the final concert.

...I've had a mid-piece wobble. I find this is always a critical time in any piece I write, and is the point where I am convinced everything I have written is terrible and that I should scrap every note. On reflection, and after encouragement from choir Director Ros, I’ve managed to get over the hill, and I'm back in a creative mindset again.

The choir is fortunate enough to have Edmund Handy as their Assistant Director, who just happens to manufacture his very own celestes. As soon as I found this out, I thought it might be nice to include one of his instruments in the concert. With the theme of space emerging, I’m hoping that Ed’s celeste will help bring all three movements of the final piece together through a series of short interludes.

I’m starting to put together the overall structure of the piece now, and I'm looking forward to trying out some new ideas in the next workshop. With the concert coming up in Ludlow on 27 June – and the Edge Chamber Choir already being so open to new ideas, willing to give suggestions and fabulous musical ability – I can already tell that I will be sad when this project is over.

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The Adopt a Composer project matches vocal and instrumental leisure-time music groups with some of the UK’s most promising composers to collaborate on creating a new piece of music. The project leads to a premiere performance and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. If you’re a music group or composer and you’d like to take part, find out more.