Some readers may have noticed that not only have I not written a newsletter for some time, I’ve also paused posting a ‘Piece of the Week’ on my website and on Facebook.
So I just wanted to reassure you that I am well, and busy with several projects for different publishers – but because publishers like secrets, and I’m not always very good at keeping them, I’ll just button my lips and say now that ‘plans are afoot’ and I will tell you more later.
A Christmas highlight for me was the performance of my carol Sweet babe, sang she by The Sixteen, director Harry Christophers. It was a lovely performance: they did it in two concerts at London’s Cadogan Hall, and then repeated it in Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. The concert was also recorded and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 just before Christmas.
The Sixteen have performed several of my Christmas carols now, and it is always a delight to hear their eloquent and colourful singing, both live and on recordings.
The same piece, (Sweet babe, sang she) was also recorded on CD by St. Martin’s Voices, director Andrew Earis, and I was delighted to go to the launch party and hear them sing it live as well.
Some sad news was the recent death of two people who were associated with my music in different ways – John Wallace and Zélie Jopling.
Zélie, who lived in a lovely farmhouse on the marshes near Colchester, was a keen musician, active promoter of musical events for young and old, and was the founder and director of the Roman River Festival (now part of Wild Arts) which is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary and continues to bring many world-class performers to venues around North East Essex, and latterly further afield, as well as initiating many educational projects.
John Wallace needs no introduction, principal trumpet of the Philharmonia Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta, founder of the ‘Wallace Collection’ brass ensemble, and later returning to his Scottish roots as the director of The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
I was able to remember these two musicians in quite a personal way this February, as my suite for wind band Heritage, whose first performance in Leeds in 1993 was conducted by John Wallace, was recently performed by the London Youth Wind Band, conducted by my son Sam Bullard – and it was lovely to hear the vibrant playing of a group of enthusiastic young people. And, a week earlier, my String Quartet no. 2, which was originally commissioned by Zélie Jopling for the Roman River Festival in 2006, was performed by a Scottish string quartet, Afton Strings, in a concert promoted by Colchester New Music to a large and enthusiastic audience in a church in Chelmsford. So it was fitting that both these pieces were resurrected, re-igniting memories of musicians who inspired them.
For various reasons I have been occupied recently with rather more non-musical issues than usual – so there is rather less news than sometimes – but my desk is stacked with manuscript paper, both full and empty, (yes, I still write by hand before transferring it to the computer!) and I plan to have more to report in a few months time.
And although ‘Piece of the Week’ may not appear regularly for the time being, I do plan to write the occasional blog on some musical developments in the last century and how they affected and influenced me (and others). These will appear on my website, in spoken form on YouTube, and with links from here: https://www.facebook.com/ComposerBullard
Thank you for reading!
Alan