Concerto for Piano and Loudspeaker Orchestra

This Concerto was written for French pianist Marie Vermeulin. The music has echoes of Messiaen, of whose music Marie is a celebrated interpreter; and of Jonathan Harvey's Tombeau de Messiaen for piano and electronics. In my concerto, the pitch world is structured around a newly created scale-form that replaces octave-equivalence by perceptual equivalence at 19 semitones. The electronic sounds encompass natural-world recordings, instrumental elements, and synthesis. Custom software created in Max provides strategies for flexible performance interaction, and embedded immersive spatialisation. Expressively, the orchestra of loudspeakers gives the piano the possibility to take wing; and the orchestra in the loudspeakers lets it dance. We gave the first performance on 18 April 2024 at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast.

The Concerto plays in a single span, whose sections are named in the score:
Part 1: — I. Invocation — II. Circles — III. Image — IV. Incantation: cadenza — V. Flight Part 2: — VI. Arc — VII. Nocturne — VIII. Envoi