Explore the music of English composer George Holloway
Over the last eighteen months I’ve been engaged in an ongoing project to familiarise myself with the ancient and charming instrumentarium of Chinese court ceremonial music, known as Yayue, a close ancestor of the Japanese gagaku. I’ve approached this from the point of view of first understanding the characteristic atmosphere of a traditional Confucian ritual,…Continue Reading “Yayue project update 雅樂項目更新: Three (More) Yayue for the Confucian “Capping Ceremony” 《三加禮》第二套 (Dec. ’22)”
This happened a while back but I’ve only just got hold of the concert programme. I was honoured to be made a guest conductor of the Taichung Chamber Choir in November 2020, and my first performance with the choir was as part of the Jazz @ Home concert in National Taichung Theatre on December 24…Continue Reading “Guest conductorship: Taichung Chamber Choir (Jazz @ Home concert, 24th Dec. 2020)”
Guitarist Sam Cave discussed and performed extracts of my sonatas in a research seminar at Brunel University, UK, in December 2019. He’s recently put it online and shared the link with me. He speaks with authority on my guitar music– after all, I wrote it for him, and we spent many happy hours rehearsing, refining…Continue Reading ““Refracted Resonance”- Sam Cave’s Seminar in Brunel University, 11th December 2019 (late upload)”
I’m delighted with Melissa Bishop’s short edit of her documentary on the Metastable Impressions project from May 2019: I’m also very excited by the recent news that my creative report on the project is to be published by the Nanhua University Journal of Art and Design (more anon on that topic). Read our…Continue Reading “Metastable Impressions: documentary, and journal publication (March 2020)”
On the penultimate day of 2018, the Holloway Children’s Choir held a truly excellent concert to a sell-out audience at the Cathay Future Concert Hall, Tianjin. To see the programme of pieces we sang, scroll down to the bottom of the post for the poster (mostly in Chinese). Bolstered by our success applying for the…Continue Reading “Holloway Children’s Choir Winter Concert”
It was an amazing 4 days at the 2018 Mise-En Festival. I met many imaginative, free-thinking, intelligent, witty and talented composers, all of us composing very different and distinctive art music. Moon Young Ha and Jordann Davis and the whole Ensemble Mise-En have worked extremely hard, especially on the last day’s 4-hour long Music Marathon. …Continue Reading “Mise-En Festival 2018 Music Marathon- World Premiere of “Crystal Images II” (June 2018)”
My children’s choir has been going well this semester. I founded it in February after the Tianjin Grand Theatre’s Mulan Children’s Choir ceased to exist (see here: http://georgehollowaycomposer.com/?p=789), and the choir is going from strength to strength. I absolutely couldn’t have done it without Zhou Ting Ting, and it’s been a huge learning experience for…Continue Reading “Holloway Children’s Choir Summer Concert (July 2018)”
The Mise-En Festival 2018 website is up now: https://festival.mise-en.org/2018/index.html This contemporary music festival, run by an amazing team led by the energetic Korean composer Moon Young HA, is held annually at Mise-En Place, Bushwick, New York. Mise-En chose my proposal for a new work, along with twenty four other composers’ proposals and scores (out of…Continue Reading “Mise-En Festival 2018 Visiting Composer- Premiere of “Crystal Images II: Beijing Hutongs, Spring ’18””
My beloved Mulan Children’s Choir. Rachmaninoff Glorious Forever Chen Yi A Ma Lei Hou, Ga Da Mei Lin (from Mountain Songs) Franck, Panis Angelicus Mozart, Ave Verum Yang Hong Nian (arr.), Jasmine Flower 杨鸿年（编） 茉莉花 Russian Song (composer unknown) Don’t be upset! (Russian song)
This piece for flexible ensemble has had many performances over the years. I’ve posted two videos of performances below, and a bandcamp link where you can hear the audio of what I think was the world premiere, by CoMA South. http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzE2NDA0NDU2NA==.html?spm=a2hzp.8253869.0.0 http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzE2NDA0MzQ3Mg==.html?spm=a2hzp.8253869.0.0
I worked with the director Cao Jing on her production of Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis in Summer 2015. I was so impressed by her imagination and talent, I was clear that I wanted to work with her on an improvised performance involving music, dance and theatre. This eventually became Ling, which we performed (each time utterly different)…Continue Reading “Ling 《灵》Improvised music, theatre and dance performance (2015/6)”
I worked on Chen Yi’s choral works with students from the composition, piano and Chinese vocal departments. We all really enjoyed learning and performing these pieces.
Dedicated to my mother. Performance in Southampton, 2012.
This vocal work sets the poetry of Li Po (Li Bai) in Chinese. The world premiere performance from my “Music for Voices” composer portrait concert in Southampton in 2012, was sung by English performers, and I did my best to coach them in the mandarin pronunciation (although of course Li Po’s own pronunciation is nothing…Continue Reading “Brief Journey (2007) for soprano, alto, erhu (or violin) and piano”
Setting of P.B. Shelley’s poem of the same name. During the first of my two years in Beijing (2012-3), I did not have many opportunities to make music. I was in the wilderness somewhat with my Chinese language learning. This was a welcome opportunity to perform my own music, although it was admittedly terrifying playing…Continue Reading “Mutability (2013) for solo soprano and piano”
This song cycle was written for, and premiered by soprano Ruth Hopkins. A Spark Lights the Void Within was written in memory of Lydia Press. I wrote the texts of the three recitatives in the wake of Lydia’s passing away, and later chose the Cavafy and Shelley poems to accompany my own. Southampton University Strings premiered…Continue Reading “A Spark Lights the Void Within (2009) for soprano and string orchestra (or piano and double bass)”
Bird Songs (2007-9) “Fifty-Nine Swans” (Yeats) “Black Rook in Rainy Weather” (Plath) “The Hierarchies of Sound” (Evans) I’ve uploaded 3 performances of my song cycle for mezzo and piano, “Bird Songs”. Each time working on this song cycle from scratch with a different singer was extraordinarily fun, and a tremendous challenge and learning experience. I…Continue Reading “Bird Songs (2007-9) song cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano”
In my guise as tenor and opera performer, from 2010/2011:
Originalmelodie reflects upon lyricism in music, and upon the boundary between independent melodic line/contrapuntal ‘voice’ and figuration/accompaniment. It is also a tapestry of reminiscences, visiting Gustav Mahler, Charles Ives, Kaikhosru Sorabji, Ferruccio Busoni, traditional Taiwanese song, Jean Barraqué, Brian Ferneyhough and Felix Mendelssohn; only the last of these is quoted directly, whose Songs without Words were first published in London as Original Melodies for…Continue Reading “Originalemelodie (2010) for solo piano”
Oxonia, performed by Music Visualisation Laboratory, Profsajungu Rumai, Vilnius, Lithuania, 18th September 2009, as part of the Vilnius European City of Culture 2009. http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzE2NDE2Nzc0MA==.html?spm=a2hzp.8253869.0.0