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Welcome to robertfokkens.co.uk, home page of composer Robert FokkensThank you for visting robertfokkens.co.uk Please check the Diary for upcoming events. Select a year from the pull-down menu and click ’Go’ for a full listing of past and up-coming events. NEWSMAY 2008: Tracing Lines to AustraliaThe excellent chamber ensemble The Fibonacci Sequence will perform Robert’s Tracing Lines for alto flute and cello at the Australian Chamber Music Festival in Townsville, Australia in July. The ACMF, an international chamber music festival held annually in July, features distinguished artists from around the world invited by the artistic director, Piers Lane. See www.afcm.com.au/ for further details. April 2008: Messiaen mutteringsRobert will give a short introduction to Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time at a recital of Messiaen’s chamber music at St John’s, Notting Hill. This should be an excellent concert, with some of London’s finest young players playing some of the best of Messiaen’s earlier work. Thursday 8th May at 7:30pm Chamber Music of Olivier Messiaen Organ Pieces St John’s, Notting Hill, Lansdowne Crescent, W11 2NN (Holland Park, nearest Underground) Tickets £10/£8 (conc) at the door. April 2008: Clockwise tour of South AfricaRobert’s new work for violin and harp approach, encounter will be performed by Clockwise - acclaimed South African musicians Jacqueline Kerrod (harp) and Marc Uys (violin) - in a tour around South Africa during June-July 2008. This enterprising duo will tour various programmes, including premieres and repeat performances of commissions written for the tour by 11 of South Africa’s finest composers. April 2008: 48 hours of contemporary music in the UkraineDuo Retorica - outstanding young British violinists Phillipa Mo and Harriet Mackenzie - perform my latest premiere yet in Odessa’s Two Days and Two Nights of New Music Festival. This remarkable Festival presents a programme of new music from 4pm to 4am two days running (18-20 April), leaving audiences exhausted but, hopefully, elated… Retorica go on at 12am on 20 April, performing a colour-themed set of duos written for them by various composers. April 2008: A visit (NOT a safari…) to South AfricaIn August 2008, Robert will return to South Africa to give presentations and classes at, amongst others, UNISA (Pretoria), the University of Stellenbosch and North West University (Potchefstroom). He will also be involved in the annual New Music Indaba to be held in Pretoria in early September, and will be present at a number of performances of his music. Full details will be available on the Diary page soon. March 2008: SAMRO awards commission for Belgian premiereSAMRO’s Endowment for the National Arts has recently awarded a commission for Robert’s collaboration with Belgian-based violin and piano duo Christy Collett and Sté phane de May. This will be premiered at De Rode Pomp in Ghent, Belgium on 19 September 2008. Full details on the Diary page. March 2008: rarescale celebrates its 5th birthdayPioneering flute-based ensemble rarescale celebrates its 5th anniversary on 13 September with a concert including world premieres by three of their most regular collaborators, one of which is a newly-commissioned work for alto and bass flutes with electronics by Robert. March 2008: Africa premiereLeading British soprano Claire Booth and her regular recital partner Andrew Matthews-Owen will perform the world premiere of Robert’s new setting of Davip Diop’s visionary poem Africa (commissioned by the SAMRO Endowment for the National Arts) as part of the Cutting Edge tour 2008. This concert takes place on 28 October 2008, and includes premieres of pieces by Arlene Sierra and Phil Cashian. January 2008: Histrionics at the Purcell RoomFunky vocal trio juice received rave reviews for their Park Lane Group concert at the Purcell Room in January. In addition to performing Robert’s Words as part of their programme, juice invited Robert to narrate a selection from Roger Marsh’s Pierrot Lunaire, leading Richard Morrison of The Times to observe that “they displayed their theatre skills in six surreal melodramas from Roger Marsh’s Pierrot Lunaire - with another composer, Robert Fokkens, matching them histrionic for histrionic as a highly-wrought narrator…” See the full review on the Reviews page of the site. juice repeats this programme with Robert at the Deal Festival on 10 July 2008 - see the Diary page for full details. July 2007: Dr Robert, I presume…Robert completed his PhD studies with Michael Finnissy at the University of Southampton in early 2007, graduating officially in July. His examiners, Christopher Fox and Michael Zev Gordon, described the portfolio as “an impressive submission…(it) reveals a composer with a distinctive compositional voice…”
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