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. Filled with sounds of cracking, slapping, whipping and scraping, it is music that is utterly contemporary, inhabiting the same urban landscape as industrial techno and electronica, And while Davies is similarly fascinated by the potential of ‘looping’ as a structural device (as in neon), there is none of the formal predictability of much commercial dance music. Rather, the skewed proportions of works such as her recent LSO commission Tilting attest to her keen interest in applying structural principles found in the natural world, or the work of architect Zaha Hadid.
In recent years Davies (b1973) has established herself at the vanguard of the new wave of young British composers. Following initial studies at Colchester Institute (French horn and composition), she later freelanced professionally in orchestras and rock bands whilst studying composition with Simon Bainbridge at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and then, later, for her PhD with Simon Holt at Royal Holloway College, London. In June 2006, the BBC SO and Zsolt Nagy performed (and recorded for broadcast) the orchestral work Tilting, and in February 2007 the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Thomas Adès gave the premiere of a 20-minute commission for large ensemble, Falling Angel, in Birmingham and at the Présences festival in Paris.
Other commissions include works for the Britten Sinfonia, the CBSO Youth Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, the Norwegian ensemble BIT 20, the Northern Sinfonia, and a large-scale multi-media work – Elephant and Castle – for the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival. Recent projects include works for the London Sinfonietta, and for the BBC Concert Orchestra, as part of their of their Discovering Music series on Radio 3.
Upcoming events include a new work to commemorate Remembrance Sunday in Portsmouth Cathedral, with the London Mozart Players, and a large scale piece for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, at the 2010 Proms.
Commissions and Performances
Residuum – 2004
8 October 2004: Grange Hall, Southam (world premiere)
9 October 2004: Townsend Hall, Shipston-on-Stour
8 November 2004: Civic Hall, Stratford-upon-Avon
9 November 2004: Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham
4 September 2005: Rye Festival
20 September 2005: St Asaph Festival
30 September 2005: St George’s, Bristol
8 November 2005: St Andrew’s Festival, Gorleston
9 November 2005: Cope Auditorium, Loughborough University
10 February 2006: St Aldate’s Church, Oxford
11 February 2006: Wiltshire Music Centre
28 April 2006L Corsham Festival
Residuum
I began the process of writing ‘Residuum’ by looking at a much earlier piece of music – Dowland’s ‘Galliard to Lachrymae’ – and I wanted somehow to make an imprint of this piece on the one I was about the compose. Much of ‘Residuum’ is made up of what I think of as being my own ‘medieval dances’ made up of musical material taken from the Dowland. This is altered rhythmically and then set into sometimes quite complex counterpoint often involving two or three different tempi or pulses going on at the same time.
The brightness of these dances is countered by slow moving passages and chords which hover over the piece like a ghost of the Dowland. The two types of energy- bright and dark- are mainly heard in stark juxtaposition but a solo cello passage links the two worlds by playing brittle and ethereal fragments from one of the dances above a dark chorale.
Ghost hunters often talk about finding residual energy in old buildings; past events are replayed in the present as a result of energy being retained by the building. Residuum’ is an imaginary replay the residual energy of Dowland’s ‘Galliard to Lachrymae’, heard like an echo of ancient music in a modern time.
Tansy Davies
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