On 25 and 26 November Han-Na Chang and the Vancouver Symphony perform Davies’ Plumes. The 5-minute work for chamber orchestra draws its inspiration from the River Tyne, visible from the concert hall in the northeast of England where the piece debuted. Plumes is a ‘duet between air and water’, Davies says, and evokes the complex currents of the great river.
The piece is a confluence of two musical flows with murky undercurrents meeting rising aerial interjections. The are represented respectively at the outset by a lugubrious line in contrabassoon, bass clarinet, and double basses, and diaphanous figuration in stratospheric violins. Cloud-like material forms as the two elements become one, before condensing and reforming as deep river currents, then ascending again.
The piece for chamber orchestra was commissioned by Royal Northern Sinfonia to mark their 60th anniversary, and received its first performance at Sage Gateshead, now the Glasshouse International Centre for Music, in September 2019, conducted by Giedrė Šlekytė. It received its North American premiere in October 2023 from Gustavo Gimeno and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Several other orchestral works by Tansy Davies are yet to receive North American premieres. Tilting (2005) is a 7-minute piece originally written for the LSO and inspired by the work of architect Zaha Hadid, which takes some of its material from a French trouvère song; another Hadid-inspired work looking to make a North American debut is Davies’ trumpet concerto Spiral House (2004), a 22-minute piece premiered by Mark O'Keeffe, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Zsolt Nagy.
On 25 September Davies’ Stone Codes makes its Polish debut at the Warsaw Autumn Festival with Konstantyn Napolov and Orkest de Ereprijs. The 18-minute work is a tour-de-force for solo percussion and an ensemble of 14 players, and appears as part of Napolov’s ‘Percussion Marathon’ programme; it commissioned by the Dutch Golden Collection Foundation, Orkest De Ereprijs, and Warsaw Autumn festival, and premiered at the 2022 November Music Festival; it received a repeat performance at Musis Arnhem in November 2023. Watch an excerpt from the work here.