Davies
United Kingdom
Integra Commission: Grind Show (Electric)
Duration: 5:43
Publisher: Faber Music
Resources: Flute, B Flat Clarinet, Prepared Piano, Violin, Cello and Electronics.
Electronic Specification: Sampler with pre-recorded sounds (IntegraLive software recommended); midi keyboard for triggering sounds; flanger/chorus for prepared piano.
Integra Ensemble: Bit20 (Norway)
Integra Research Centre: Krakow Academy of Music (Poland)
Programme Note
Grind Show is a superimposition of two scenes: the foreground is a bawdy dance hall, and the background a rainy landscape at night. The acoustic instruments play out a drama with a dialogue of irregular dances, while the electronics depict a sinister outside world. While composing Grind Show I saw a painting by Goya: The St Isidore Pilgrimage, which shows a crowd of debauched and frightened revellers appearing to flee across the hills from a distant town. It’s painted over an earlier landscape on which, in turn, the figures were superimposed.
Biography
Tansy Davies rose to prominence on the British scene with a sequence of ensemble works for the Composers Ensemble (Patterning), the London Sinfonietta (Torsion) and The Brunel Ensemble (The Void in this Colour), all of which bear the hallmarks of her apprenticeship under Simon Bainbridge and Simon Holt. In her recent work, Davies has found an accommodation between the worlds of the avant-garde and experimental rock, between – in the words of one critic – Xenakis and Prince. Tansy Davies’ commissions also include works for the Britten Sinfonia, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the CBSO Youth Orchestra, the Norwegian group Bit 20 and a large-scale, multi-media work for the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival.
NB
This piece was composed during the first phase of the Integra project and as such does not use the Integra:Live software.