I wrote the A part and Anna wrote the B part. Great fun times teaching at Tinto Summer School last week! The title refers to the huge amounts of money I have to raise to keep me at Berklee for more than one semester! Haymee is one of my nicknames!

More info on this here

I am part of Scottish composition organisation ‘Distil‘, and was given the opportunity to write a piece for the Distil Showcase 5 at The Tolbooth arts centre in Stirling in November.  I wrote it for String Quintet, and it was performed by the fantastic ‘Mr. McFall’s Chamber’ and musically directed by ace UK composer Sally Beamish. Thank you so much to Dave Francis, David McGuinness and Simon Thoumire at Distil for this fantastic opportunity.  The Showcase concert, and indeed recordings and videos of it, represent very much a ‘work in progress’ of the pieces involved. I hope to develop my piece even further this year.

The piece is called “David”, n honour of a family friend David Ince, and is in 3 movements. You’ll find more info about the piece in the video above.

Alternatively, you can listen to the audio of “David” below.

1st Movement: “David”

2nd Movement: “Dreams”

3rd Movement: “Glen Uig”

Here is Simon Thoumire’s promo video for the event. I’ll also explain a little about what Distil is in case you don’t know: I attended the Scottish Arts Council’s ‘Distil’ composition workshop in April 2007.  The course/retreat/workshops provides young professional folk-musicians with the opportunity to expand their musical horizons through collaboration with peers and experts from a variety of genres.  The year I attended Distil, we had Simon Fell, David McGuinness and Chris Wood as the three ‘specialists’ – together providing us with an insight into numerous intriguing areas of the musical spectrum including free improvisation, jazz, classical music, early Scottish piano music, intonation as a form of expression in music and English folk song culture.   Distil provides a platform for original works to be premiered – the annual ‘Distil Showcase’.