for orchestra

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This is a very simple piece for orchestra, written to follow a standard programme. It is a kind of "anti-encore", sempre piano, slow and reflective. The music grows from a single note, A, almost as if the orchestra were "tuning down". At the midway point, the music encores itself, on repetition elaborating harmony and timbre, but with a memory of the fundamental counterpoint. Instruments rarely play more than one or two notes at a time, so the music relies on this memory to phrase. Encore is essentially an attempt to give musical meaning to a disembodied notational aesthetic.

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Premiere 29 January 2023 in Symphony Hall by the CBSO.

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