Ensemble CGWM

From the Song of Amergin, for flute, viola, and harp, is in five sections, played without break. Three lines from Robert Graves’ restoration of the text of an ancient Celtic calendar-alphabet, the “Song of Amergin”, directly inspired the piece:
I am a wind: on a deep lake,
I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,
I am a hawk above the cliff.
The inner sections of From the Song of Amergin are shaped by the twinned images wind/deep lake, tear/Sun, and hawk/cliff. The piece begins and ends with an invocation of “I am”. The inner sections also reflect the dedication – In memoriam Alberta Todd Jones (my mother’s sister) – respectively, Alberta’s wisdom (with echoes of the hymn, Crimond), Alberta’s joy (a “rainbow dance”), and Alberta’s strength.
Commissioned by the Criccieth Festival with funds provided in part by the Welsh Arts Council, From the Song of Amergin was premiered in Pwllheli, North Wales, 26 June 1995, by harpist Elinor Bennett with members of the Lontano Ensemble. © HT/OUP

This is my form of gratitude towards the individuals in life that create purpose through creativity and opportunity.
“There was a smile dancing on his lips, although it was a wary smile, for the world is a bigger place than a little graveyard on a hill; and there would be dangers in it and mysteries, new friends to make, old friends to rediscover, mistakes to be made and many paths to be walked before he would, finally, return to the graveyard…” (Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book)
“Some things are too big to be seen; some emotions too huge to be felt.” (Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes)
With funds provided from PRSF, Tŷ Cerdd, Vaughan Williams Foundation and Colwinston Trust. Also, a personal thanks to the Darkley Trust for their support which made this piece possible. © ND

Written for the Bangor Music Festival and CGWM Ensemble, BLOCK is a piece that probes a new direction for Zach Reading’s compositional direction and output. The name comes from the motivic blocks that recur throughout the piece. The first is the angular, rebounding motif heard in the opening bars, the second is a set of dense, ascending chords, and the third is a calmer, momentary chord which underpins a flute melody. The second section is more expansive and consists of a sustained viola melody accompanied by gently pulsating chords played by the vibraphone and harp that move through a number of tonal centres. An uneasy passage follows that utilises the ascending chords heard earlier, now also expanded, before the opening material interrupts and leads to an energetic finale. © ZR

Written for the Ensemble Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias as part of the Bangor Music Festival 2024, Polarity draws inspiration from the works of Tacita Dean, particularly her landscape chalk works Fatigues. This piece explores the juxtapositions of these works that draw on themes of darkness and light. Throughout the piece there are two distinct themes/characteristics of the piece, which touches upon the monochromic effects of these chalk works. The lightness, explores the subtle, bright and melodic textures of the theme, whilst the darkness totally contrasts through percussive and dark tonalities. However, both themes make subtle nods to the physical practice of the chalk pressing against the black board. As we journey through this piece, the themes and gestures gradually blend further together to encompass the various gradients and unity we feel within the artworks themselves. © TLP

This work was written during the first half of 2022. My aim was to create a piece where each individual performer is given the opportunity to stand out as a soloist-of-sorts (i.e. the group’s most prominent member). A bowed vibraphone note opens the first movement, after which the flute dances its way across much of its register. The second movement provides contrast; in it, the harp spins a virtuosic solo while the other performers react to it in various ways. The third movement is the work’s emotional centre, with the viola singing almost throughout. In the fourth movement, the percussionist takes centre-stage as fragmented materials are woven around it by the other performers. The fifth and final movement sees all four performers on an equal footing; the work ends as it began, with a bowed note on the vibraphone. © GR

Niamh is a Welsh speaking artist from Aberystwyth and composition graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff. She works as a self-employed composer, producer, sound artist and score-editor.
As a student, she enjoyed composing for ensembles such as The Hermes Experiment and the Berkeley Ensemble whilst under the tutelage of composers including Mark Bowden, Lynne Plowman, Joseph Davies and Mark D. Boden.
Upon leaving education, Niamh took part in Psappha Ensemble’s 2022 Composing For scheme and was commissioned to write Dealt a Hand for the concert series Night Music with musicians Anne Denholm (Harp) and Héloïse Werner (Voice). She wrote the piece Five Windows for the BBC NOW’s Composition Wales 2023 which has since featured on BBC Radio. She composed music for the short film, I Am One, which premiered on the BBC in October 2021 and had its first cinema screening in August 2023 at the Prince Charles Cinema in London. Her most recent projects include composing for the UPROAR ensemble as part of Tŷ Cerdd’s Composer Studio and the RSNO’s Composers Lab 2023/24 with mentors Patrick Doyle and Danai Kokogia

Tayla-Leigh Payne is a Welsh composer based in Cardiff, where she recently graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) with a First Class Honours in Composition and Creative Technology. During her studies, Tayla explored the worlds of notation and electronics where both mediums influence her works. The styles in which she composes vary greatly from classical, contemporary, electronic, hybrid and sound art. Likewise, Tayla enjoys drawing inspirations from other artistic mediums (art, animation, sculptures and film) and previous works of hers have explored the use of old and analogue mediums to inform her contemporary practice. Tayla’s works have been performed in venues such as Queen Elizabeth Hall, St.David’s Hall, BBC Hoddinott Hall, Craig-Y-Nos Country Park, BBC One Wales and an upcoming premiere with the LPO Junior Artists at the Royal Festival Hall in February 2024.

Zach is a British composer who grew up in Buckinghamshire. Having studied with Guto Puw and Pwyll Ap Sion at Bangor University, Zach is in the final stages of his PhD while also teaching full time in Somerset. Zach’s compositions focus on the development of a characteristic harmonic landscape and rhythmic creativity. His two biggest influences have been the worlds of Western art music and progressive metal. Zach has had music performed by the Allegri Quartet, Idesta Saxophone Duo, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and previously directed the Bangor New Music Ensemble.

Gwydion Rhys is 20 years old and hails from Rachub near Bethesda, Gwynedd. He is currently in his third year at the Royal College of Music in London, where he studies Composition with Alison Kay and Conducting with Toby Purser. He won the Composition Medal at the 2023 Urdd Eisteddfod, held in Carmarthenshire, with Five Quartets. He has been a keen competitor in eisteddfodau for years, and has twice won composition competitions in the National Eisteddfod. In March 2024, his latest commission, Hommage à Chasse-neige, will receive its world première at Rhyl Music Club.

From her childhood in the coal-mining valleys of South Wales, Hilary Tann developed the love of nature which has inspired all her music, whether written for performance in the United States (Adirondack Light for narrator and orchestra, for the Centennial of Adirondack State Park, 1992) or for her first home in Wales (the celebratory overture, With the Heather and Small Birds, commissioned by the 1994 Cardiff Festival). A deep interest in the traditional music of Japan led to study of the ancient Japanese vertical bamboo flute (the shakuhachi) from 1985 to 1991. Among many works reflecting this special interest is the large orchestral work, From afar, premiered in 1996 by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. Hilary lives south of the Adirondacks in upstate New York where she is the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at Union College in Schenectady. She holds degrees in composition from the University of Wales at Cardiff and from Princeton University.
Her connection with Wales continues in various choral commissions, including Psalm 104 for the North American Welsh Choir (1998) and Paradise for Tenebrae (Gregynog Festival, 2008). The influence of the Welsh landscape is also evident in many chamber works and in text selections from Welsh poets George Herbert, R. S. Thomas and Menna Elfyn. In July 2001, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes premiered The Grey Tide and the Green, commissioned for the Last Night of the Welsh Proms. Recent years have brought a series of concerto commissions – Here, the Cliffs for violin; In the First, Spinning Place for alto saxophone; Anecdote for cello. Shakkei, a diptych for oboe solo and chamber orchestra, was premiered by Virginia Shaw in the Presteigne Festival, August 2007, and has since been performed multiple times.