Miscellaneous Writings

I got to know George Bruce’s poetry when setting sonnets by Edwin Morgan for male choir (Edwin Morgan wrote an introduction to Bruce’s collected poems). I first set two poems

Like many Englishmen I had sung madrigals for pleasure – usually late at night with friends, after several glasses of wine. While these madrigals have their charm, and many are

The Squirrel and the Ricketty-Racketty Bridge This piece was written for guitarist Derek Bailey in 1971 for inclusion on one of the first Incus Records, a label devoted to free

Christopher Fox,  Music Dept., Huddersfield, As requested here are some notes on clarinets and clarinet music. Hope they are useful.   Writing for the clarinet (I’m writing this in response

Bryars (with Tom Waits), Jesus’ blood never failed me yet, Point Music 438 823-2 (1993)A number of these works, including Jesus’ Blood, will be revived in this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary

Edward James (1907-84) was a rich patron and collector who supported Dali and Magritte. He inherited the West Dean estate in West Sussex from his father but in 1964 donated

!–more–> Derek Ainslie Jackson was the son of Sir Charles Jackson, barrister, landowner, art collector and authority on English silver. Derek was very close to his twin brother Vivian and

[2351 words]The interview here is a conflation of what William Crack told Gavin Bryars and Peter Dickinson PD Did you have to audition to get the job of Lord Berners’

GAVIN BRYARS [BBC R3 1983][3755 words – unchecked] PD What are Berners’ paintings like? GB There’s quite a wide range. They start from paintings and drawings done when he was

Dear Richard Turner, Many thanks for your letter of December 9th asking me about Lord Berners. I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to respond but I have

My first encounter with John Cage changed my life. I had known about Cage from quite an early age. Dr. (“Bud”) Ramsey, the extraordinarily enlightened music master at Goole Grammar

Given her birthplace I assumed at first that Celmins’ exquisite drawing was a response to the night sky over the Baltic in the Bay of Riga. However, she seems to

The appearance of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing in 1972 coincided with the beginning of a three-year period when I wrote no music. I was teaching in a Fine Art

FAX MESSAGE To: Linda Saunders (Modern Painters) Date: February 29th 1996 Dear Linda, Thanks for the proof of the article. I think it reads very well and it has benefited

I’ll start my notes on Etel in a circumlocutory sort of way, and I hope you will forgive this…. I started to write my first opera, Medea, in the summer