A very big thankyou to all those FROTs who managed to make it to our 10th Anniversary Concert at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.
The evening proved to be a great success. The programme consisted of mainly original works, all contrasting in styles, and all were warmly received. A number of composers have expressed their thanks at being featured in our concert and have asked us to thank audience members for their support. As a result of the concert we hope to be collaborating with a number of composers on a variety of exciting and groundbreaking projects.
Tubalaté in association with Boosey & Hawkes
We are proud to announce that we have received support from the instrument manufacturers, Boosey & Hawkes. The company has agreed to supply us with a full set of instruments, which we will endorse and promote through our work.
We hope to be working alongside Boosey & Hawkes in a number of enterprises. The company has already agreed to support our forthcoming trip to the USA.
Looking Forward to 2002
I had thought that, having celebrated our 10th Anniversary last year, 2002 could possibly be an anti-climax for us all. How wrong could I be….?
The association with Boosey & Hawkes coupled with an increasingly busy performing schedule means that 2002 is to be an exciting year for Tubalaté.
The next couple of months sees us performing a large number of educational concerts in Primary Schools within Warrington, our project with Epping Forest Arts continues towards it's climax in March and a repeat appearance with Brass 2000 at the Birmingham Symphony Hall in February.
In May, the International Tuba and Euphonium Association will be holding their annual conference in North Carolina, USA. Fellow tubists will congregate from around the globe at this major event. We have been invited to perform. The conference also features an international tuba quartet competition, and we have been asked to select the repertoire and adjudicate.
We also hope to be travelling to St. Petersburg later in the year to tour the region in association with the British Council.
2002 is going to be rather hectic - but fun! I'd love to tell you more now but it'll have to wait until the next issue - we're in the middle of shooting a promotional video (darlings!).
Composer
Profile
This issue focusses on Michael Finnissy.
Michael has written a new work for Tubalaté entitled 'Violet, Slingsby, Guy and Lionel'
My Parents met during the Second World War. They married in June 1945, honeymooned in Torquay, and I 'came along' in March 1946.
There was no professional music making in my immediate family - but my great-aunt Rosie taught me to play the piano and how music was notated. (I started writing my own pieces when I was about four.)
I was quite happy being a rather eccentric child. I hated school until I was in sixth form. I was lucky enough to have the poet Alan Brownjohn as my form-master.
My family, especially my mother, was tremendously encouraging of my writing, and I eventually won a Foundation Scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, where I studied composition with Bernard Stevens, and later Humprey Searle - and piano with Edwin Benbrow, Stephen Savage and Ian Lake.
I played for ballet classes to earn money to buy music and go to concerts. My first public exposure as a composer was at a MacNaughton Concert in 1965 - I also had pieces performed at some Festivals of Music 'In Our Time' in London, Conway Hall. I was also fortunate enough to be selected for Gaudeamus Music Weeks, and then performances started to follow in other parts of Europe. It was very, very slow - the frequent adverse criticism was heartbreaking!
I was still playing for all sorts of dance classes, doing repetiteur work, copying scores - and went on doing so until I was forty. I started teaching - dancers, choreographers, painters, and 'Exploring music' - mainly influenced by John Cage.
I played piano concerts too, my own music, young composers who were then struggling to find exposure (Hard work!) and, I was, though I didn't realise it, running myself into the ground.
I spent six years as President of the International Society for Contemporary Music, travelling all over the world - being a polemicist, an enthusiastic missionary, a diplomat, propagandist. Then my health got really bad, and I eventually wound up having open-heart surgery. My blood pressure is still dodgy.
I now have a Professorship at the University of Southampton. I've been teaching in Leuven (Belgium), and start soon in Maastricht, too. I conduct Andrew Toovey's ensemble, Ixion, from time to time. I am also fortunate to have pianists like Ian Pace and Nicholas Hodges playing my work on a regular basis, and recording in for CD too. I'm delighted to have just finished a piano work for John Tilbury and I'm hoping to be fit enough to play some Chris Newman premieres later this year.
I live in a small town in the Sussex Downs. The local film society have invited me to do a study day in March, and I'm now writing music to accompany Jean Vigo's film 'A propos de Nice' - a critique of corrupt capitalism and over-indulgence made in the late 1920's - and still on target!
A brief synopsis…
The story of 'Violet, Slingsby, Guy and Lionel' appears in Edward Lear's 'Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets' of 1871. The 'four little children who went round the world' here, at the start of their curious adventures, sail for ten days (finding plenty to eat, as Lear puts it) to different countries, singing (?) what they can glean of the local folk-music. Allusions are made to the music of France, Brittany, Wallonia (French-speaking Belgium), the Tyrol, Romania, Poland, Norway, North American Indians, Russia and Finland. Each section of the score lasts one minute.
'Violet, Slingsby, Guy and Lionel' will be premiered on 16th March at a Tubalaté performance for Steyning Music Society.
Steyning Music Society contact:
Gary Prior
01903 812662
Ian Anstee - all you wanted to know…
Ian was born in Bedford. He started his musical education at the age of nine with Marion Hext, music teacher at Daubeney Middle School. Marion's husband taught brass at the school and soon became Ian's first brass teacher. (Ian is the only member of Tubalaté to have started to learn the Tuba from the very beginning - something to do with the size of Ian as a child!
Ian stayed with Terry Hext for nine years. He joined Bedfordshire Youth Brass Band, Wind Band and Orchestra, where he rehearsed every school holiday. During term time he was busy playing for Bedford Town Band, Bedfordshire Symphony Orchestra and Kempston Concert Band.
In 1990 Ian moved from Bedford to study with Stuart Roebuck at the Royal Northern College of Music. Here he played in a variety of ensembles from the Big Band to the RNCM Symphony Orchestra. He also became a member of Tubalaté (then known as The Eclipse Tuba Quartet). Whilst at college Ian had lessons from Andrew Duncan, Brian Kingsley, Bob Tucci, Roger Bobo and Mel Culbertson.
As well as performing Ian took a keen interest in Music Education. He worked with the Hallé Orchestra education department and the Royal School for the Blind presenting music workshops for all areas of society.
Ian graduated from the RNCM in 1994 with a distinction in Professional Performance (as a soloist), merit in professional performance as an ensemble performer (Tubalaté) and a degree in music.
After college Ian worked for a number of educational establishments, predominantly giving workshops for adults with disabilities. As Tubalaté began to develop Ian's workload changed to accommodate more performing.
He has played with every major orchestra in the northwest. He has also recently been on trial for the post of Principal Tuba at the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast.
Ian leads a busy life, mixing performing with Tubalaté, The Thalia Ensemble and various orchestras with his career as Senior Lecturer in Introduction to Music Therapy at The Royal Northern College of Music, brass teacher at Clitheroe Royal Grammar School and Local Youth Officer (north-west) for Making Music.
