Richard Haynes premieres ghosts of motion in Bern

I’m accustomed to long waits between finishing a work and hearing it, sometimes in the order of years. So when Richard Haynes announced the première performance of my ghosts of motion for his new clarinet d’amore on 23 October–less than five weeks after I finished the piece–I was astonished. As Richard points out on his website this is “the world’s first recital exclusively of contemporary solo works for clarinet d’amore”; the remainder of the repertoire for the instrument being 18th century. Pitched in G, the instrument sounds a tone above the basset horn, and has a mellow sound, fuller and more plangent than the B flat, but less voluptuously rich than the bass clarinet. I hope that one day I will be able to hear it live.

The concert will take place at 8pm Swiss time, at the PROGR Zentrum für Kulturproduktion, Bern, and I am hopeful that a video, or at least audio, record of the event will become available eventually. Watch this space…