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Posts Tagged ‘Philip G. W. Henderson’

Session for Philip G. W. Henderson

Friday, November 16th, 2012

On Sunday 28th October we once again recorded music by the composer Philip Henderson. The music was a suite of movements entitled ‘Sea Voices’ and scored for a string section of 5 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and a double bass. The recording venue was in Milton Keynes and the sound engineer had rigged the entire recording space with duvets in order to deaden any ambience created by the room.

We started recording just after 10am, with Ben the double bassist located in a separate room with a talkback link and synchronised click track. As the musicians were all excellent sight readers, the session proceeded smoothly and the entire recording was finished by 6pm, with a very happy composer. He had driven down from Leeds earlier in the day so was fatigued by the end but also uplifted by the results!

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Recording ‘The Hop-picker’s Daughter’

Monday, March 7th, 2011

Yesterday we were delighted to work once again with contemporary composer Philip G. W Henderson , recording his new work for String Quartet entitled ‘The Hop-pickers Daughter’. It is a collection of three pieces which are influenced by elements of his family history in Kent and are highly inventive and lyrical in nature.

The players on the recording were the same group who had performed this work back in September at the Cadogan Hall, in aid of the charity Soundaround so were already familiar with the first movement of the piece ( although Philip has written an additional two movements since then).

The three hour session was intense in nature and once we started recording, barely a second was wasted as the music was rhythmically challenging in places, requiring great concentration. It was also important to capture the mood of each movement and this was greatly helped by having the composer present and able to give us guidance with regard to phrasing and feel.

By the end of the recording session, all three movements had been completed and we left Philip mixing and mastering with the engineer.

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Concert at the Cadogan Hall for Soundaround

Saturday, September 25th, 2010

On Thursday night, a group of 10 players from String section (including the Manor House String Quartet at the core) were booked to perform as part of a very special concert, held by the charity Soundaround who produce audio magazines for sight impaired people.

The music was conducted by the contemporary English composer Philip G. W. Henderson who we worked with last year recording ‘Magic Wood’ – a suite of atmospheric music for string ensemble.

The evening was formatted with pieces of music interspersed with interviews of the composer and performers who included Steve Hackett on guitar, singers Neil Latchman and Pia Sukanya and pianist Dhevdhas Nair.

Our performers included myself (Vaughan Jones) on violin, along with Louise Bevan, Gabrielle Painter, Judith Templeman and Ruth Funnell. The violas were played by Adrian Smith and Reiad Chibah, with Julia Graham and Emma Black on ‘Cellos. We were joined by double bassist Ben Russell who was great to work with.

As we had already rehearsed the quartet parts previously, the day was mainly focused on the works written for 10 piece string ensemble (the majority of the programme). The performances were a success with the group sounding very strong and every player having some intricate solos which emerged from the textures at various points.

We very much look forward to working with Philip again in the future!

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