Sinfonia concertante

Sinfonia concertante (2017)

for chamber orchestra

2 fl; 2 ob; 2 cl; 2 bsn
2 hn; 2 tpt
timp
strings

Duration: c. 6 minutes

This work began life in 1990 as a composition for solo piano, written for the American choreographer Scott Clark for a workshop presented at the Scottish Youth Dance Festival in the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh.

The following year, the piece was expanded into its present instrumentation for Conceived Sheraton Plaza, a collaborative dance and music project with choreographer Andy Howitt. The project was inspired by the meeting between Igor Stravinsky and Dylan Thomas in America in 1953, when the two discussed the possibility of creating a new opera together.

Although the work neither quotes nor directly references Stravinsky’s music, it reflects something of his characteristic rhythmic energy and draws on aspects of the harmonic language associated with his neoclassical period.

Revised and re-orchestrated, this version was made in 2017.