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.png "Slide Action (Photo: Matt Jolly)") |
| Slide Motion (Picture: Matt Jolly) |
Fashioned in 2018, the trombone quartet Slide Motion (Huw Evans, Jamie Tweed, Benny Vernon and Josh Cirtina) has simply launched its first main album, their debut recital disc. On NMC Recordings the album, RE:BUILD options music by modern composers Ryan Latimer, Laura Jurd, Emily Corridor, Alex Paxton and Joanna Ward. The quartet is obsessed with creating a brand new voice for the trombone they usually commonly fee new music from composers, collaborate with different musicians and create their very own preparations.
In 2021-22 Slide Motion had been Britten Pears Younger Artists, the place they collaborated with quite a few rising and established composers. Highlights included the premiere of Robin Haigh’s concerto for 4 trombones and orchestra – THE DREAMERS, written for Slide Motion and the Britten Pears Modern Ensemble, and Slide Motion’s personal present Rebuilding the Trombone that includes eight new works.
I lately met up, by Zoom, with Josh and Jamie from the ensemble to seek out out extra concerning the new disc and about their method to creating music for trombone quartet. They regard new music because the ensemble’s USP, commenting that once they began in 2018 there was not an enormous quantity of recent music for trombone quartet, a lot of it was not that attention-grabbing and quite a lot of the brand new music got here out of the Paris Conservatoire within the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties. They needed to develop the repertoire by commissioning new items and creating their very own materials (the brand new disc consists of Josh’s preparations of music by Purcell and Matthew Locke, and items by Jamie and Benny). They’re additionally concerned about discovering new sounds for the instrument.
Josh and Jamie admitted that, exterior of the trombone world, the trombone quartet remains to be considered as one thing unusual however for them, it was fairly pure. They’ve been enjoying in trombone quartets all their enjoying lives and needed to current the repertoire to a wider world. The music on the disc is a mirrored image of their stay programming, each the programme order and the brand new commissions. The disc options new items alongside what the quartet calls Interludes. 4 commissions and one Interlude had been premiered at a live performance at Aldeburgh in 2022, and to those had been added an extra fee and additional Interludes. Initially, the programme was a stay idea however their purpose was all the time to make an album.
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| Slide Motion at Snape Maltings (Picture courtesy of Britten Pears Arts) |
They didn’t merely need the programme to be a number of new music; they felt that if it was, they’d wrestle to make individuals wish to hearken to the album. Their idea was for a unified listening expertise, creating Interludes that are impressed by the items that come earlier than and after. So, specific pitches or thematic hyperlinks are used to attract issues collectively and current a single arc for the listener.
After I requested concerning the lengthy wait from their founding to creating their debut recital disc, the 2 males laughed and admitted that it was partly to do with cash. But in addition, all the brand new items took time for the collaborations with the composers to develop and to get the completed music underneath their skins. Additionally, the group took time to seek out its toes. After they had been first shaped, they performed quite a lot of the classical trombone repertoire and vocal music. That they had the concept for the programme and the album, but it surely took time to return to fruition. And it wasn’t only a case of elevating the cash for the recording, getting the backing of a label like NMC was necessary to have their mission taken significantly. They discover that there’s nonetheless a problem with getting the trombone to be taken significantly, significantly in new music.
In reality, among the finest methods to study the trombone is to play with different trombonists; who higher understands your trombone enjoying than different gamers? In any case the concept of trombones enjoying collectively (and earlier than them, sackbuts) is a really outdated concept. Transcriptions of choral music had been their bread and butter, the 4 forming an ensemble like ATTB. Although this type of ensemble was a characteristic through the Early Music interval, it’s unusual how little for it developed subsequently.
There are robust preconceptions concerning the instrument. The ensemble needs to encourage individuals with much less expertise with the trombone, significantly composers, to seek out out extra, and they’re producing a sequence of movies demystifying the trombone. Their method is matter-of-fact, for example with glissandos they clarify what does and doesn’t work on the instrument. They wish to encourage composers to make use of new sounds fairly than sticking to the essential pitches. And while composers usually are not truly discouraged from trying into the trombone, the instrument is uncommon even amongst different brass devices. They wish to demystify issues and break issues down in a means that doesn’t come throughout nicely in a ebook. As an illustration, within the varieties and makes use of of mutes, and right here they point out the way in which modern composers have been experimenting with placing issues apart from mutes down the bell of the instrument. Therefore the significance of the movies [see the ensemble’s website].
For the album, they gave all of the composers the identical temporary. They needed music that projected the composer’s voice unadulterated and needed the composers to consider new sounds for the trombone. Aside from Alex Paxton (who’s a trombonist), they tried to seek out composers who had not written a lot for trombone and who weren’t well-known within the brass world.
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| Slide Motion – February 2024 (Picture: Ollie Denton ) |
Exterior of the ensemble, the 4 have diversified and wide-ranging careers
although all are classically educated. After we spoke Josh had been enjoying
with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra while Jamie was on tour with the band, Public Service Broadcasting (and was taking the Zoom name from the tour
bus) and had lately been on a cruise. All of them have portfolio careers,
their different actions being complementary to their work within the
quartet. All 4 discover it useful to have a number of irons within the hearth,
and Jamie admits that they’d wrestle if restricted to enjoying
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 3 on a regular basis,
fantastic although these items are.
The sheer number of their
careers signifies that they’re comfy in numerous eventualities which
helps with the quartet, their efficiency is an amalgam of their
personalities and careers. Thus they’re one thing of a artistic melting
pot, bringing new concepts into the efficiency and new ideas about
venue selections past the usual classical, in addition to having the
expertise of various types of music. They admit that the principle draw back
to this range is the problem of timetabling.
What they
wish to obtain is to go away a legacy of music for the trombone and
trombone quartet, and convey the trombone to a wider viewers. They’re about to announce their 2025 programme which may have a spotlight
on collaborations, with completely different composer-performers and with the
mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts Dean. They’ve one other album of their sights
which is likely to be regarded as Slide Motion and pals, with
cross-collaborations throughout devices, genres and sound worlds. This
can be thrilling in itself, however additionally they really feel that these diversified
collaborations may have an enchantment for various promoters and
audiences. They wish to transcend the concept of simply 4 guys and their
trombones. While they had been on the Britten Pears Younger Artist Programme
they had been inspired to work with different composers and performers, and
given time and house to take action, and are eager to proceed on this vein.
RE:BUILD – Slide Motion (Huw Evans, Jamie Tweed, Benny Vernon and Josh Cirtina) – NMC Recordings
- Henry Purcell (arr. Josh Cirtina): ‘March’ from Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, Z. 860
- Ryan Latimer: C. Exigua
- Jamie Tweed: INTERLUDE I — Easy Place Cool Drink
- Laura Jurd: Swamped
- Benny Vernon: INTERLUDE II — Sit
- Emily Corridor: Shut Palms
- Matthew Locke (arr. Josh Cirtina): INTERLUDE III — Flatt Consort
- Alex Paxton: Bushy Pony Estampie
- Joanna Ward: Enjoying frisbee Might 2022
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