• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Works
    • Upcoming performances
    • Past performances
  • Recordings
  • Listen
  • Gallery
  • News & Views
    • Articles
  • Contact

Colin Matthews

Composer

Matthews’ statement has a power and elegance that are quite his own.

— Paul Driver, The Sunday Times

Recording the Panufnik composers

30 January, 2021

An ensemble of 6 (socially distanced) musicans plus conductor performing together; this is a screenshot on zoom and you can see Colin Matthews dialling in top left.

The group of composers who joined the LSO’s Panufnik Scheme last February (see my post of March 6) have had a pretty miserable year, but we finally managed to get some sessions off the ground last month.

We didn’t manage to have a second meeting before the lockdown kicked in, and their workshops were all cancelled – including what should have been their concluding orchestral session in March of this year, when it’s still hoped that the cancelled session for the previous year’s Panufnik composers may be able to take place.

Christian Mason and I have been keeping up regular online contact with the group, but it’s no substitute for the real thing, and I’ve spent a lot of the year trying to secure funding so that they could write pieces for small ensemble for recording by LSO players. It was inevitably a difficult thing to set up, but eventually we managed to fix three days of sessions in Henry Wood Hall in December. This was a project as much for the players – who as freelance musicians have lost a huge part of their income – as for the composers, and it was heart-warming to watch the commitment and dedication that they gave, never wanting to offer anything but their best. I did what I could to produce the sessions over Zoom, but it couldn’t have happened without David Lefeber (our regular NMC engineer and producer) who both filmed and recorded, and the help of Darren Bloom, who at short notice was an outstanding conductor for three of the pieces.

The final results won’t be known until everything is edited, but for now we have have six happy composers!

Primary Sidebar

Search Works & Recordings

Latest News & Views

An ensemble of 6 (socially distanced) musicans plus conductor performing together; this is a screenshot on zoom and you can see Colin Matthews dialling in top left.

Recording the Panufnik composers

30 January, 2021

Nottingham University Challenge team - Roy, Hopkins, Wood, Matthews

Christmas University Challenge

19 December, 2020

Gurrelieder poster for first perfomance in 1913

Gurrelieder

7 April, 2020

Upcoming Performances

Click on the date and title of the performance to view venue and booking details in a new window.

27 April, 2021 - Seascapes (World Premiere)
Nash Ensemble
Wigmore Hall, London

View all performances

Useful Links

Faber Music
NMC Recordings
The Holst Foundation

© 2021 Colin Matthews · Website by Bookswarm

Menu
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Works
    • Upcoming performances
    • Past performances
  • Recordings
  • Listen
  • Gallery
  • News & Views
    • Articles
  • Contact