Welcome to my newsletter covering the months of July and August 2023!

This summer has turned out to be a very busy one for me, with lots of places to go, explore and experience my music live. Despite the business of travel I have been fortunate enough to find some time work on my compositions including a new work for Creative Dialogues Festival in the Loire Valley called 'a tulip, iron' for mezzo soprano, tenor, violin, viola and cello. I am also working on a new piece for CoMA due to be premiered in their 2024 festival.

Santa Fe chamber Music festival - World Premiere of Where skies aflame on Friday 4th August 6pm NM (GMT-6)

In June, I went to Hong Kong for the premiere of my string quartet Distorted Light but the second stop on my collection of trips this summer sees me going to Santa Fe for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival for another world premiere of a string quartet.

This time it is for my newly written string quartet 'Where skies aflame' performed Flux quartet commissioned by Santa Fe Chamber festival.

I rather love the string quartet as a genre and ensemble to write for, so to have two of my quartets – one old (ish) and one very new – performed in the space of a few months has and will be a real treat. The fragility, then power, the enormous range of colour the string quartet can create are all reasons I find it really makes me very excited as a composer. 

Where skies aflame for string quartet 2023

Where skies aflame has been written for the Flux quartet for a commission from the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

When beginning this piece I was walking in a local area to me in the UK called Cannock Chase, formerly part of the Royal Forest of the Norman Kings of England. Even though I'd been there many times before, I had stumbled across an area that was new to me with a dramatic sandstone cliff, looking down at the deer herds and the heathland below. In the evening light I was struck by the dramatic skyline which seemed to evoke something more expansive beyond the horizon. With this in mind, I started researching and looking at images of the landscape in and around Santa Fe. This piece is inspired by my own local landscape, Santa Fe's landscape and skies, and my own imagination of what the atmosphere will be like in Santa Fe in the intense heat of August. 

RTHK Radio 4 in Hong Kong Broadcast of Distorted Light for string quartet on 11th and 16th August

Earlier in summer I had my other string quartet Distorted Light performed on 1st and 2nd July at the Shaw Auditorium and City Theater. On 11th August at 8pm and 16th August at 2pm (HK time) RTHK Radio 4 in Hong Kong will be broadcasting my string quartet piece Distorted Light (2020-2023) performed by Viano quartet  from Intimacy of Creativity festival concert on 2nd July 2023 at City Theater in HK.

The work since its original conception in 2020 has gone quite a journey, with small revisions made before its premiere at Tanglewood festival in 2022 to a more substantial change to the ending of the work in 2023. The Hong Kong performance is the world premiere of the work in its revised form.

Distorted Light for string quartet 2020 (revised 2022 and 2023) 

Distorted Light explores the idea of light being distorted through different prisms create spectrums of colour. This is evoked through rhythmic pulsating patterns on harmonics that keep changing the shift of the harmony and emphasis of pitch. A melody of sorts is created across the quartet through the passing of these accented moments. 

The cello's entries gradually begin to dissipate these pulsating harmonics with fierce and emotive solo material, that are then punctuated by small glimmers of material related to the opening material. These punctuations gradually transform into less defined material allowing the lines to interweave in a more fluid manner than before. The pulsating harmonic material little by little begins to make its presence known once again before distorting into the strident melody first heard in the cello earlier in the piece, but now almost a memory presented across the ensemble and continous disingtegrating into timbral explorations or harmonic pulsations. 

Creative Dialogues festival France - World Premiere of a tulip, iron for mezzo soprano,  tenor, violin, viola and cello on 28th August 4pm 

After being invited to attend Creative Dialogues I was asked by Annsi Karttunen to write a new work for mezzo soprano, tenor, violin, viola and cello to be workshopped, rehearsed and performed as part of the festival. This was such an exciting prospect, with not a lot of time I needed to decide quickly what type of work I wanted to write. I decided I wanted a unique text, giving the impression of a larger narrative, as though part of an opera or longer song cycle. For a short while I flirted with the idea of writing my own text before approaching the librettist Kendra Preston Leonard.

When I approached Kendra for a unique text to set, I asked her to explore memory as something difficult, questioning why certain things happened the way they happened, questioning yourself and whether things were your own fault. I wanted the text to draw on the deep intense emotions that still bubble over the surface from the bullying and gaslighting I experienced at school.

I have found this text deeply emotionally powerful to set. Alongside this, I engaged with the visual stimulus of Perle Fine's work The Early Morning Garden. Taken together, these helped me find a soundworld that is a mixture of fragility and strength, whilst exploring the nuances of colours and distinct gestural shapes for both the string players and the vocalists. The piece should be treated as an imagined scene from a larger narrative trajectory set ambiguously in memory or somewhere real; perhaps it is both. 

Note from librettist Kendra Preston Leonard: 

a tulip, iron is about the fear and horror created by psychological and emotional abuse, the relief of escape from abuse, and the work required to contend with traumatic memories of it. Using Perle Fine’s work The Early Morning Garden (1957) as a focusing device for this lyric, I work with elements of the natural world as well as my own personal history. The mezzo soprano and tenor serve as protagonist and antagonist, respectfully, and I’ve made it deliberately unclear as to whether their texts and interactions are taking place in the present or are memories. The text is in three loose sections, through which the protagonist moves from fear and intense self-doubt into greater agency, grapples with the causes and extent of her wounds, recognizes how trauma has shaped her, and becomes able to distance herself from it. The antagonist diminishes and humiliates the protagonist, causing her to hesitate and sing in fragments of sentences. He calls her simple and an embarrassment, disparaging her mind and body and abilities, even as she begins to communicate more fully and lyrically and draws on a wider world for her outlook. Finally, he—or the memory of his words and actions—falls silent, becoming nothing to the protagonist, as she leaves the scene—or memory—with self-determination.  

CBSO'S CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

I was delighted to share my work Unravelling the crimson sky with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra as part of their Sounds New initiative on 29th January 2023 at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, conducted by Clark Rundell.

The work received some wonderful reviews:

Twenty young composers capture the zeitgeist in Birmingham 29th January 2023 at Symphony Hall, Telegraph
 ‘...and a glow of Michael Tippett's dancing rituals in Angela Elizabeth Slater's beautiful Unravelling the Crimson Sky.’

Ivan Hewett

Musical Opinion April June 2023
Sounds New: Twenty CBSO Centenary Commissions.  Symphony Hall, Birmingham (29th January 2023)
Angela Slater’s Unravelling the Crimson Sky was an intricate, sometimes turbulent and often ravishingly scored piece that exploited the full range of a large orchestra, with brass and percussion highlighted to conjure up glowing colours streaked across sky.  Taut and closely argued, it began with, and developed a fanfare-like motif, while juxtaposing diverse episodes, some reflective and others dynamic, before finishing with a passage of glinting, pellucid textures.  A rich mixture of a tone poem and a study in timbre, this ambitious, accomplished work was awarded a detailed and superbly played debut performance.

Paul Conway

Illuminate Women's Music concert review St Peter's Church 25th Feb 2023

The recital ended with another Illuminate commission.  Angela Elizabeth Slater’s Tangled breath in winter air, for piano trio (2023) is a three-movement work inspired by the need for all of us to take time to breathe and reflect. In the airy, expansive opening movement, ‘Breathe’ slow, sonorous gestures were laced with clarinet multiphonics and cello harmonics. The central movement, ‘Inhale’, was edgy and urgent, conveying the stresses induced by everyday living.  The closing movement, ‘Exhale’ returned to the measured pace of the opening movement, the music songlike, assured and replete with long, flowing, expressive lines.  In this committed rendition, the score’s detailed narrative was given sufficient space to emerge and expand.  Tangled breath in winter air made a thoughtful, gently imposing closing item in an imaginatively compiled programme.         

Trio Sonorité captured each work’s individual character, bringing a natural feeling for line and phrasing.  This deeply rewarding concert added lustre to an invaluable concert series that never fails to delight and enlighten.  

Paul Conway

I am so excited to be partnering with percussionist Hannah Weaver and harpist Rosanne Moore for my newest project, Mountains become oceans!

Mountains become oceans is a double harp and percussion concerto set with full orchestra that follows the event of our Sun becoming a red giant and the impact that has on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. Titan is a moon of frozen ice mountains, but with this event, as the Sun’s rays reach the far corners of the Solar System, Titan will see its temperature rise, and its ice will melt and form some of the last oceans of our Solar System.

If you are a conductor, artistic director, or staff for an academic or professional orchestra interested in joining this consortium, please visit https://www.angelaslatercomposer.co.uk/mountains-become-oceans.html for more details and complete the form to sign up. Our goal is to have this piece showcased around the world! Stay tuned for more details surrounding this new endeavour!

​COMPOSER EDITION - additional scores 
I was delighted to announce in October 2021 that I had joined Composers Edition. Now I have added many more of my works to my catalogue. You can view and purchase my scores here