Update, April 2025
The early part of the year has been pretty eventful, with the release of a new CD of my choral music on the Métier label and the launch at a Joyful Company of Singers concert at St Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico. Peter Broadbent, JCS conductor, programmed three of the pieces from the CD which were all connected thematically: Uncertain Sea ends with the image of the sea that “rolls us round like stones”; Returning from the Tomb relates the Easter story of the stone rolled away from Christ’s tomb; and The Knight’s Stone (with Philippa Davies as the superb flautist) includes the lines from the 15th century Corpus Christi Carol “And by that bed’s side there standeth a stone, Corpus Christi written thereon.”
The CD has had very positive reviews, including in The Gramophone, and was selected as Pick of the Week by Ireland’s RTE’s Lyric fm channel which broadcast Caedmon’s Hymn, a really interesting choice. Promotion of the CD by Métier has been terrific, so hopefully choirs and conductors might be drawn to some of the works.
The Aglica Trio continue to perform Toiles de Staël for flute, viola and harp. They gave another London performance in one of Bob Boas’s Mansfield Street concerts in January and their recording of the work is due to be released on the Polish DUX label.
Very recently I composed five short pieces for viola and piano, Foot Notes, for ViolaViva Musikverlag, based in Switzerland. The pieces were composed to challenge viola students preparing to move up to ViolaViva’s Mastery Series.
I continue to work on my chamber opera Camille and in mid-April I went to Paris to meet Madame Reine-Marie Paris, the great-niece of Camille Claudel, and granddaughter of Paul Claudel. To have the privilege of talking to someone who knows Camille’s life and work as well as anyone, and who knew her grandfather, was very special. I wanted to know if Madam Paris would approve of my work on Camille and if anything in my libretto was contentious. Happily, she gave the project her full support and I learned more about the artist that I was then able to use in a subsequent revision of the libretto. The visit was really inspiring and I now feel even more committed to the subject. The search for an enterprising promoter to stage the premiere performances continues!
Update, December 2025
My last Update was rather long, so I’ll try to make this one shorter. Photos from The Shackled King in Oxford in late October (rehearsal, not performance) capture the dramatic presence of both Sir John Tomlinson as well as Rozanna Madylus whose interpretation of the roles of Cordelia and the Fool goes from strength to strength. It was a very powerful performance from both artists and was extremely well received.
This came not long after I had returned from Bogliasco where I spent four blissful weeks in the most wonderful location. My composing studio-chalet where I lived and slept, perched above the Mediterranean with only views of the sea and sky from the huge windows, was the perfect place for concentrated work on Camille. My libretto received further revisions but I was able to press on with the music from day one. After four weeks I had completed four scenes and have now finished Act 1. I hope that we can find an enterprising promoter or festival to consider staging performances of the work.
Work on the final stages of the new Joyful Company of Singers CD of my choral music has taken up quite a bit of time finalising details of the booklet. I have been fortunate in having my friend Alison Latham, one of the best copy-editors, to work on the booklet. My painting of Dunstanburgh Castle and details from the painting form the outer covers of the booklet and CD. Its launch on 19 March 2026 by JCS at St Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico, will also include three works from the disc: Uncertain Sea, The Knight’s Stone (with Phillipa Davies, flute), and Returning from the Tomb.
I was delighted that Mantle was nominated for an Ivors Academy Award in November in the Chamber Music Category. It didn’t receive the award, but being nominated is anyway a big reward in itself.
A very nice photograph of me with the artist Keith Roberts standing by his magnificent plaster bells is already on my website. For the new installation in St Cuthbert’s Church, Norham, in north Northumberland (6-14 November) Keith brought a different and larger set of bells (and two new ones made especially) from the ones we used for a similar installation in Bamburgh in November 2023. We called the Norham installation Silenced Bells – Distant Voices and the recording of Memorial was the one by JCS from the new choral CD, with Metier’s permission, played on the hour every day from 10am to 4pm. What a huge privilege it was to take over the magnificent and ancient chancel space of St Cuthbert’s Church, just as it had been in St Aidan’s Church in Bamburgh – churches dedicated to two of our greatest Saints.
My friend John Fullerton wrote the following after the Launch of the Norham installation:
What impressed me was the union of Memorial with sculpted Distant Voices which interacted strongly in the performance of your work. Text alongside Keith Roberts’ sculpted artwork spoke of a relation that can only be characterised as metaphysical in the sense that music, text, and installation were metaphysically charged when heard and seen alongside bells that had no tongues, a very moving experience in the space of St Cuthbert’s. To my mind, the union of music with written text in your work is exceptional; many, many thanks for such an experience.
Photo below: John Casken and sculptor Keith Roberts at St Cuthbert’s Church, Norham, Northumberland, where the Joyful Company of Singers’ new recording of John’s Memorial was played on the hour for nine days from 6-14 November 2025 as a Memorial Installation of Sculpture and Music for the Fallen and Lost 1914-1918 and in the world today. The Joyful Company of Singers recording will be released on CD in March 2026.
Update, October 2025
Oxford International Festival of Song featured The Shackled King in the Holywell Music Room on Saturday 25 October. Sir John Tomlinson was on terrific form as King Lear, with Rozanna Madylus demonstrating her acting and vocal range playing his three daughters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, and the philosophical Fool.
(above) Rozanna Madylus, mezzo soprano, as Regan with Sir John Tomlinson as King Lear
(above) Rozanna Madylus as The Fool with Sir John Tomlinson as King Lear plus Kyle Horch, saxophones; Sam Ewens, trumpet; Ben-San Lau, piano and Fenella Humphreys, violin
Mantle has been nominated as best chamber ensemble composition for this year’s The Ivors Academy Classical Awards. Mantle, scored for piano and wind quintet, was commissioned by the Nash Ensemble for their 60th birthday season and was premiered at Wigmore Hall on 18 March 2025.
A couple of photos from my four-week Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship near Genoa, working on my new chamber opera Camille:
Update, September 2025
Balancing my musical and other creative activities in and around my home town of Wooler and in North Northumberland makes for a very busy life, as I’ve said before. Directing my chamber choir and creating interesting programmes (sometimes including my own pieces) is very rewarding as well as challenging. The experience of working at first hand with singers has fed into my choral writing. The new CD of my choral music by Joyful Company of Singers has now been edited and it has been fascinating to be involved in the process. The CD will be released next March including three of my works in a JCS concert to mark the occasion (more in due course). In June, JCS gave the London premiere of Floore of Allegories, a piece dedicated to the choir, but unfortunately the conductor Peter Broadbent had been taken ill and I was asked if I would conduct my own piece!
My activities as Chairman of Wooler Arts is ongoing and the Summer Concerts that I organise went especially well this year (all concerts can be seen via www.woolerarts.org.uk). We opened with a stunning concert by the horn player Ben Goldscheider and pianist Richard Uttley, two really outstanding musicians. They included my Serpents of Wisdom and gave a brilliant account of the piece. I also organised a Composers’ Competition and the winning piece by Ryan Collis, decided in the afternoon Workshop by Nicola Lefanu, myself and Ben, was including in the evening concert. Nicola’s After Lindisfarne also featured in the concert.
There is nothing to report about my weekly organist duties (no recitals!…) except to say that I offer a wide range of music at each service and enjoy occasionally playing the more straightforward of my own organ pieces. But, the organ played an important part in January and February. In January we recorded my Tree of Angels for cello and organ with Kim Vaughan and the organist Tom Wilkinson in Morningside Parish Church in Edinburgh. I was delighted with the results. It’s an interesting combination and I can’t wait to hear the piece in a live concert, wherever or whenever Kim and Tom decide that should be. The work will be available as a download with the new JCS choral CD.
Then, in February, the organist Simon Leach performed my large-scale Sacrificium in St Salvator’s Chapel of St Andrews University. Composed in 2009 as the Quarterfinalist Test Piece for the St Albans International Organ Competition, it is rather challenging, and Simon more than rose to the occasion.
The Aglica Trio have been giving more performances of Toiles de Staël and at the end of January they gave the British premiere in St Paul’s Church, Clapham as part of the Clapham Concert Series. It was a lovely occasion with an appreciative audience. More performances took place in Belgium and I was very happy to be able to go the Culturcentrum Strombeek in Grimbergen to hear them and also to introduce the work to the audience.
March saw the world premiere of my Mantle at Wigmore Hall with the Nash Ensemble. This is a seven-minute piece for piano and wind quintet commissioned by the Nash for their 60th anniversary. Gardeners will know the Lady’s Mantle as Alchemilla mollis, literally soft alchemy, a perennial herbaceous plant with soft leaves that collect rain and whose dewy droplets look like jewels. Amelia Freedman, now sadly no longer with us, possessed this ‘soft alchemy’ offering jewels to the world of music and to composers. It is no coincidence that the name Amelia is contained within Alchemilla.
August ended well with a visit to the Presteigne Festival, my first since 1997 when my old teacher John Joubert was featured. In 2010 John McCabe gave his last public piano recital there and included my The Haunting Bough. This year I was privileged to have my Four Ghost Songs sung by Marta Fontenals-Simmons, accompanied by Timothy End. It was a magical, dramatic and compelling interpretation of the songs and lovely to work with Marta and Tim for the first time.
Rozanna wrote to me in April about an article she had read about the late 19th century French sculptor Camille Claudel, wondering if this might be the subject for an opera. I read the article, did some research and decided I wanted to pursue it. What a tragic story! Camille was the student, assistant, muse and lover of Rodin, and sister of Paul Claudel the distinguished poet and playwright (and also diplomat). Things took a dark turn and she was placed in an asylum in 1913, living there for 30 years until she died. I went to Nogent sur Seine in July to do further research and to talk to the Curator of the Musée Camille Claudel. Even though the work is not commissioned I am determined to write this and next week will set off on my four-week Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship near Genoa, the draft of my own libretto in my case, to begin to compose the music.
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Click here for John’s News Archive (from 2020)