CMRC Seminar - Tom Armstrong and Jakob Fichert
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RCH/003, Ron Cooke Hub, Campus East, University of York (Map)
Event details
ALL WELCOME
In this seminar, pianist Jakob Fichert and composer Tom Armstrong present and discuss part of a concert given at York Late Music earlier this year. The concert was the first stage (or version) of a project that examines the overlap between composing and arranging whilst enlarging the former practice to encompass the activity of concert programming.
The York concert consisted of a tapestry of variations — four discreet musical panels in which variation works from the 19th to the 21st centuries were threaded together. They included Tom’s own Dance Maze: Variations (1994, revised 2009, 2017) intertwined with Copland’s Piano Variations (1930); a memory of associations between these two pieces was the catalyst for this project and formed its first panel — Jakob will perform this in the seminar.
Variation Tapestry I may be discussed from a number of points of view: it was created collaboratively, in particular the choice of source materials; various techniques of abridgement and segue were employed to link these materials to form larger structures; the project was an attempt to address the difficult question of ‘the second performance’ (of Dance Maze Variations) through composer/performer dialogue and co-creation; finally, the ‘work’ (if that is the right term) exhibits some qualities of the curatorial approach to composition discussed by Ed McKeon (2022) in his recent volume.
Jakob and Tom will touch on all of the above during the seminar in addition to considering how they might develop Variation Tapestry in future iterations.
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About the speakers
Tom Armstrong studied composition with George Nicholson and, at the University of York, Roger Marsh. Performers of his music include the Fidelio Trio, Jane Chapman, Jakob Fichert, Simon Desbruslais, Notes Inégales, Gemini, Madeleine Shapiro and the BBC Philharmonic. His music has been performed in Europe, China, Australia and the US. Amongst his many compositional concerns is the frequent reworking of other composers’ music as current collaborations attest: a set of Bartók arrangements for the Hungarian guitarist Katalin Koltai, a programme of re-imagined ‘classics’ for Trifarious and a song project with the pianist and composer Nathan Williamson. Damascene Redux (2014), a reworking of Tom’s Damascene Portrait (2003), was released on the CD Late Music by the Delta Saxophone Quartet in 2023. Tom is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Surrey. His practice-led research is published by Palgrave Macmillan, appears in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Performance Research (forthcoming) and has been funded by the AHRC.
https://tomarmstrongcomposer.com
Jakob Fichert is a pianist with an international profile. He has repeatedly performed in prestigious venues and festivals and has recorded for Naxos, Toccata Classics, Divine Art and
Resonus Classics to great critical acclaim both as a soloist and collaborating artist. Jakob holds a PhD from University of York and has published with Breitkopf & Härtel. A much in demand pedagogue, Jakob has given numerous master classes for music specialist schools, conservatoires and universities in the UK and abroad, most recently at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. He holds the positions of Lecturer in Piano Studies at University of York and Principal Lecturer at Leeds Conservatoire.
www.jakobfichert.com
Venue details
Wheelchair accessible