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COMPLETE CATALOGUE AND SHEET MUSIC ORDER FORM Primavera Music publications can to be ordered by credit card on-line at tutti.co.uk
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| Biographies | News | Key Works | Tracks | Contacts |
Enid Luff and Julia Usher have been in the forefront of
composer-publishing for many years. | ||||
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Julia Usher, M.A. PGCE RMTh(NR) |
Enid Luff, M.A. M.Mus. LRAM |
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| ENID LUFF: | |
NEW CD RELEASE Enid's "About the Wind", for flute and piano, is included in the recent CD release by Composers of Wales, "Ariel", featuring Catherine Handley, flute and Andrew Wilson-Dickson, piano, of works by members of Composers of Wales. (This disc received, by the way, a "rave review" in The Musician, who said: Heavenly album - Gorgeous duo flute and piano - pace and drive - melodic sweetness - Premier league status. Enquiries via www.cc-cw.org). |
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| Enid's set of two songs, "The Water Diviner" for unaccompanied solo soprano (to words by Gillian Clarke), were performed on March 8th, 2009 by Frances Lynch, at an afternoon session hosted by Forum London Composers' Group called Role Play: Women and Music, at a small Arts Centre, the Red Hedgehog, in the North London borough of Highgate. The atmosphere in the smallish room, helped by the deep red hangings and table covers and a beautiful old carved screen in dark wood, was warm and friendly, and so was the discussion during the first part of the afternoon. Practically all those present were women, and were composers. Frances presented these songs as dramatic solos, no copy, and in costume. Her use of her high soprano voice is ultra-flexible, pushing technique, expression and illustration to the extreme, almost seeming to paint with her voice and gestures what the song is about. | |
| Click the link below and scroll down to see a video of the performance: |
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| www.youtube.com/electricvoicetheatre | |
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Two of Enid's recent compositions follow a path marked out by this piece, towards the use of greater forces, with the richer textural possibilities offered by larger groups. One of these is "They that go Down to the Sea in Ships", for string orchestra, which follows step for step the kaleidoscopic images behind the text of the Biblical Psalm 107, forming a powerful narrative." |
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| During the summer of 2007, Lament for the Ashes of Language, for soprano, clarinet Bb and piano, was sung by Sylvia Strand, soprano, with Graham Jones, clarinet, and Andrew Wilson-Dickson, piano, in Trinity College Chapel, Carmarthen, on June 12th, 2007, as part of the Trinity Festival. This poem is a setting of a powerful poem by Gillian Clarke, about the loss, destruction and waste caused by war. | |
| During the Bangor New Music Festival in March 2007, The Footprints of the Storm, for violin and piano, was played by the brilliant young violinist and violist Matthew Jones, violin, with Michael Hampton, piano, in a recital sponsored by Cyfansoddwyr Cymru/Composers of Wales, in the Powis Hall, University of Wales, Bangor, on Friday, March 16th. This piece was formerly on the spnm short-list. | |
| Also in 2007, Viola Lullaby, for Solo Viola, was played by Philip Heyman at Trinity College, Carmarthen on May 13th, About the Wind, for flute and piano, was played at the Wales Millennium Centre on July 13th, by Catherine Handley, flute, and Andrew Wilson-Dickson, piano. | |
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| For more information click here | |
| JULIA USHER: NEWS 2009 |
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| Julia writes: "I have received a full grant for my "Lullabies" project from Arts in Essex. This is a community project to record, document and share handed-down lullabies from families of diverse origins in Colchester and Essex - demanding but exciting work!" | |
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Julia's latest work: The Transit of Venus is for Bb Soprano Saxophone and Bb Clarinet. This duet has been written for the ensemble Gemini, and will be premiered at St Botolph's Church, Colchester when Gemini lead the Colchester New Music Day on May 27th, 2009. |
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THE TRANSIT OF VENUS In this gentle duet, the two heavenly bodies sound their changing spatial relationship to each other. Venus drawn by the pull of the Sun’s gravitational force, approaches, passes and is flung away again. Sometimes they reach an aural conjunction, at the Octave. Sometimes the two emerge from the depths of aural space like a radio signal, and fade away again into silence. |
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| NEWS 2008 | |
| On May 14th, 2008, Julia was be the featured composer during the Colchester New Music Day. She was commissioned to write two new pieces, which were premiered by the Gemini Ensemble, with Sarah Leonard, Soprano. | |
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Il Pozzo di San Patrizio
was played at the evening concert at the Swinburne Hall, Colchester, at
7-30pm, in a programme including works by Harrison Birtwistle and Mark
Bellis, among others. Julia's music was also featured at a presentation
at 12-1pm at the Headgate Theatre, in a workshop which also included
other new works.The whole event went under the vivid title of Glass,
Bells and Time. |
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| Recently Julia celebrated the launch of a new DVD; this was an exciting and unusual collaboration with an Italian graphic artist living in Berlin. Julia's prize-winning piece for Clavichord CLAVICLE: a Touch - Piece for Clavichord has been realized and performed for a DVD recording by the brilliant clavichordist Andrea Gregori. But this was only the beginning of the project. Andrea Gregori not only wanted to explore the sonorities of the piece, and the very extended techniques suggested by the score.He was further inspired to create a sequence of surprising and extraordinary graphic images, which cut and intercut in dramatic synchronization with the music. Andrea is a photographer and graphic artist; he has used images many of which are taken from the graffiti, the cracks and the weathering that were on the surface of the Berlin Wall. | |
| This has been an exciting collaboration, starting with the composition of a piece in which Julia stretched the contemporary technique of clavichord playing with many unusual effects, including harmonics, use of double fretted unisons, and glissandi on the strings. Andrea's own interpretation of the score breaks new ground. Finally, his synchronized sequence completes a full circle: the new work is called TOUCHING THE WALL. Andrea has also designed a very striking sleeve cover for the DVD presentation. | |
| The DVD disc has been released through various internet outlets, from Britain and from Europe. Julia and Andrea are also planning to release the DVD to Festivals, art galleries and other forms of diffusion and projection. | |
| NEWS 2007 | |
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Julia was involved
in co-directing a major dramatic production of Stuart
Russell’s mini opera Tower of Babel just before Christmas.
This was a collaboration between Firewire ( COMA EAST) and the
Colchester Institute Music Department under Mark Bellis. Stuart’s
terrifying fable of the collapse of an ancient city due to the
overreaching ambition of its ruler
struck many modern notes.
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Julia’s latest work is
another theatre piece - Malkin, for clari net, violin,
cello and piano; it is the evocation of an East Anglian ghost story,
where children playing in an old house are befriended by a spirit
child, who learns to play with them before sharing a dreadful secret.
The work receives its first performance by IXION in Colchester on May
5th.
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Julia’s experimental
Clavichord piece Clavicle has received two new
interpretations. Micaela Schmitz gave a find performance of this
taxing work, which involves drawing harmonics, double fretted effects
and glissandi from the strings as well as playing on the keyboard of
the instrument; this was in a concert in London held by the British
Clavichord Society on March 31st.
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On the same occasion, Clavicle
was released in a new form on DVD (Primavera). Julia has been
collaborating with clavichord player / artist Andrea Gregori
from Berlin; Andrea recorded his own performance of Clavicle and
then added stunning graphic images which are closely synched
with the music; the abstract visions are taken from the walls of
Berlin, and look as if they have been “scraped” by bare hands.
This unique collaboration is called Touching the Wall,
and can be
ordered from tutti.co.uk from June, 2007.
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JULIA USHER |
ENID LUFF |
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| 1980 A Reed in the Wind *
(Solo Oboe) Wangford Festival Prize.
A study of the winds of the world. On
Ass. Bd. Syllabus Grade VIII,
1982-2000. Performer: Sylvia Harper, oboe. 1986: The Orford Merman (Music Theatre) performed at Arundel and Greenwixh Festivals in 1990. A folk-tale about a strange outsider who comes face to face with society. Dancer, Actor, and chamber ensemble. 1989: Marak (Piano Solo) 4 short abstract pieces evoking Moroccan decoration. Pianist: Gabriel Keen. 1993: Sacred Conversations (mixed ens) Written for Sounds Positive Ensemble. An unusual combination of instruments for an intense meditation. 1996: Genetic Code. A vivid orchestral piece of motor rhythms and evolutionary ideas.
2001: Before Light Ends
(Piano Solo) 1st Performed
by
Anna Markland, Holywell
Music Rooms. Also
by Peter Lawson on Metier
CD: Sacred Physic (Usher)
2002:
Lost Icons
Performed in
Colchester
by Vega Wind Quintet
2002:
Magnificat
Commissioned by Women
in Music for Millennium Commissions.
Nunc Dimittis
performed in
St Martin in the
Fields Church.
2004: Clavicle
(Clavichord). Won a
prize in
British Clavichord
Society Comp. Performed
in London 2007 by Micaela
Schmitz.
Performance with
synchronised
graphic imagery by
Andrea Gregori on new
DVD,
Touching the Wall, March
2007.
2005:
Periodic Table lll
for cl, ob, va, pf
2005: Unruly
Sun
( vn, vcl,
harpsichord)
Commissioned by Semley
Festival, Dorset;
performed
by the Bande of
Instruments.
2007: Malkin:
Theatre Piece
Chamber Ensemble 1st
performance May 2007 by IXION, Colchester.
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1986: Piano Sonata: "Storm
Tide" An evocation of the storms of
the North Sea, and the drowning of
the land. "..a study in a kind of
...massive minimalism...a genuine
skill in the pacing of textural
change." (Independent). Premiered by Peter Lawson.
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* Asterisked works are included in the Music Tracks |
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TOUCHING THE WALL:
A synchronised
sequence of pictures and sounds
based on a Clavicle,
a piece for clavichord by Julia Usher
DVD Issued by
Primavera
Duration: 13.20
Price from Tutti:
£12.99
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Listen to excerpts from works by Julia
and Enid as streamed RealAudio files. Click on the icon to hear the
sample.
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Both composers will be happy to undertake commissions for particular groups, venues or occasions, and where possible to assist in their performance. We are also happy to give lectures on composing, contemporary music, music and visual art, music therapy, to colleges, schools and universities. For further information / full catalogue contact PRIMAVERA Link to the Welsh music site with |
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