Welcome to robertfokkens.co.uk, home page of composer Robert Fokkens

Thank you for visiting robertfokkens.co.uk. If you would like to hear some of my music, please visit www.myspace.com/robfokkens.

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.

NEWS

AUGUST 2010: Lite Bite dates

My Lite Bite mini-opera for Tete-a-tete’s Opera Festival at the Riverside Studios is being performed most nights as part of the festival - after workshop performances in the first week, the four short operas are now being put on in the foyer of the Riverside Studios before and between shows in addition to daily performances in Hammersmith’s parks, malls and squares. The festival itself is a wonderful showcase for some of the most interesting and creative approaches to the genre to be found in the UK, and runs Thursday - Friday evenings 5 - 22 August. If you have an interest in opera and around London this month, I strongly recommend popping in for at least one evening just to see what’s on - and you’ll probably bump into my mini-opera Contact too.

JUNE 2010: Tete-a-tete Opera Festival Lite Bite

I’ve been invited to write a mini-opera for Tete-a-tete’s annual opera festival this year. Running from 5-22 August at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, London, The Opera Festival attracts some of the most interesting composers and groups working in the field of ’opera’. Lite Bites are very short mini-operas performed by a group of two singers and two players in public spaces both at the Riverside Studios and around Hammersmith for the duration of the festival. For more information, visit The Opera Festival’s website: www.tete-a-tete.org.uk/OpFest2010/

APRIL 2010: Soundings 2010 programme released

The programme for the concerts at the Austrian Cultural Forum’s Soundings 2010 have been finalised. See details of the concerts on the diary pages. Patricia Rozario (soprano), Mary Dullea (piano), Darragh Morgan (violin), Robin Michael (cello), Lore Lixenberg (mezzo), Rowland Sutherland (flute) and Tom Lessels will perform music by myself, Ian Vine, Emily Howard, Gerhard Krammer, Elisabeth Harnick and Stephan Karl.

APRIL 2010: Tracing Lines in the Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa

A recording of my violin and cello duo Tracing Lines has been released with the most recent issue of the Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa (vol. 6, 2009) along with a brief commentary in the journal. The recording is by Julie-Anne Derome (violin) and Gabriel Prynn (cello) of the exceptional Canadian piano trio, Trio Fibonacci.

For more information, visit the publisher’s site:

http://www.nisc.co.za/journals?id=12

MARCH 2010: Ave Verum Corpus premiere at Leeds Cathedral

On 30 March the girls’ and adult choirs of Leeds Cathedral conducted by Christopher McElroy premiere my Ave Verum Corpus, commissioned by Choir and Organ magazine last year.

FEBRUARY 2010: Trio Fibonacci open the Louise Blouin Foundation Concert Series 2010

On 4 March, exceptional Canadian piano trio, Trio Fibonacci, will present the first of this year’s monthly concerts at the Louise Blouin Foundation, Holland Park. The concert includes their third performance of my duo for violin and cello, Tracing Lines, alongside trios by Michael Nyman, Schumann and Beethoven. This wonderful series is curated by pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen, and takes place on the first Thursday every month. For details, check the diary page of my site.

JANUARY 2010: Teaching composition in Cardiff

This semester I am fortunate to be teaching a fine group of third year composition students at the University of Cardiff.

NOVEMBER 2009: Austrian Cultural Forum’s Soundings 2010 Festival

I’ve been invited to take part in the 7th edition of the ACF’s Soundings Festival next year. With a line-up of great performers and excellent composers, the concerts in May should be very exciting. Check back soon for final details of concerts, performers and pieces.

NOVEMBER 2009: Strobe date and venue finalised

The SA NYO performance of my 1999 orchestral work Strobe will take place on 9 December 2009 at the Endler Hall in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Strobe will be performed alongside music by Mokale Koapeng, Peter Klatzow and Rimsky-Korsakov. The orchestra is conducted by dynamic Swedish conductor Frederik Burstedt.

NOVEMBER 2009: Strobe returns to Cape Town with the South African National Youth Orchestra

The National Youth Orchestra will perform my first orchestral piece (Strobe, written in 1999 and previously  performed by both the University of Cape Town and Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestras) in Cape Town in early December. Dates are currently being finalised - check back soon.

OCTOBER 2009: An Eventful Morning Near East London on Swedish Radio

The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra’s performance of my violin concerto, An Eventful Morning Near East London with Ernst Kovacic (solo violin) and Pierre-Andre Valade (conductor) was broadcast on Swedish Radio on Thursday 15 October. If you would like to hear the performance and the other excellent works on this concert, follow the link below. My piece is about 30 minutes in.

http://www.sr.se/webbradio/webbradio.asp?type=broadcast&Id=2003379&BroadcastDate=&IsBlock=

SEPTEMBER 2009: Recordings of my work now on myspace

If you would like to hear some of my music, please visit www.myspace.com/robfokkens - if you would like to hear more, please contact me using the form on my Contact page.

AUGUST 2009: Flights into Darkness at Tete-a-tete’s The Opera Festival reviewed on Seen and Heard International

In a lengthy review of the performances of Flights into Darkness at The Opera Festival, Seen and Heard said of the piece: ...this is an intelligently conceived piece that has touches of brilliance. The work is dark, mesmerising and enormously intense, and this performance was an unforgettable experience.

JULY 2009: Flights into Darkness and Cabaret Fou at Tete-a-tete’s The Opera Festival, Riverside Studios

Flights into Darkness, a dark melodrama devised by myself and the performers Tom Frankland (actor) and Jakob Fichert (pianist),  will be presented on the opening and second nights of Tete-a-tete’s fabulous The Opera Festival at The Riverside Studios on Thursday 30 and Friday 31 July. Produced by Sounds Underground and premiered in London and Oxford in March (one reviewer describing it as highly original and saying it is impossible not to be completely enthralled), Flights into Darkness is the thrilling journey of one man’s descent into madness. With a suitably late starting time - 10.00pm - this is guaranteed to send you out into the night with a lot to think about, and possibly slightly nervous...

Cabaret Fou also makes a return to the Riverside Studios after a successful performance at the 2007 Opera Festival. Singing sad, funny, ironic, bitter and rude songs by Graham Fitkin, Roger Marsh, Laurence Crance, Kerry Andrew, Geoff Hannan, David Blake, Robert Fokkens and others, Cabaret Fou will entertain you stylishly and movingly for an hour on a Saturday night (10.00pm on 8 August). Please see individual listings on the diary page for full information, but have a look at http://www.tete-a-tete.org.uk for more information about this exciting festival.

JULY 2009: Tracing Lines broadcast on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio

A live recording of the original version of Tracing Lines for alto flute and cello, performed by Vernon Hill (alto flute) and Benjamin Hughes (cello) was broadcast on ABC’s Classic FM on 27 July 2009. The recording, made at Piers Lane’s Australian Festival of Chamber Music 2008 in Townsville, came from a chamber concert performed by The Fibonacci Sequence along with a number of other very distiguished performers. Full details of the concert and broadcast can be found at: www.abc.net.au/classic/daily/stories/s2601809.htm Unfortunately, this programme does not appear to be available for listening online.

JUNE 2009: Ernst Kovacic, Pierre-Andre Valade and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra to perform An Eventful Morning Near East London

As I announced earlier in the year, my violin concerto An Eventful Morning Near East London will receive it’s second performance at the ISCM’s World New Music Days in Sweden on 1 October this year. The performers for the concert in Gothenburg will be international violin soloist Ernst Kovacic, renowned conductor Pierre-Andre Valade, (currently conducting the premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna for the Manchester International Festival) and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Full information is on the diary page,

MAY 2009: The Louise T Blouin Foundation Concert Series

Pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen has devised and curated a fascinating  series of concerts for the Louise T Blouin Foundation art gallery in Holland Park. Following an extraordinary opening recital by percussionist Joby Burgess in April and a fascinating music and video collaboration called Broken Voices on 7 May, Andrew teams up with soprano Claire Booth for a recital of contemporary song co-promoted with Sounds Underground on Wednesday 10 June. The recital includes the London premiere of Robert’s Africa, a setting of French-African poet David Diop’s visionary poem. For further information about the series, please visit  www.ltbfoundation.org/foundation/events.htm

APRIL 2009: The Times has been very nice recently...

In January, The Times said of Clariphonics’ Purcell Room performance of Robert’s clarinet quartet Best of all was the world premiere of Glimpses of a half-forgotten future...  More recently, in a glowing review of juice’s Wigmore Hall debut recital, their reviewer said ...I loved Robert Fokkens’s ’Words’... For the full comments on my pieces and other press about my music, please click on the Media button above. If necessary, select Reviews from the menu and click Go.

APRIL 2009: A Curious Adventure featured on TV and radio

Robert’s educational project with Combe Down and Newbridge primary schools in Bath - an oratorio written collaboratively with the pupils and performed by 300 children at the Bath Pavilion on 30 April - was featured on BBC Points West (regional TV news), BBC Bristol (regional radio) and in local newspapers on the day of the performance. The show itself, conducted by Robert, was a huge success, with the magnificent efforts of the young performers rewarded by a standing ovation from a capacity crowd.

MARCH 2009: An eventful morning... selected for ISCM World New Music Days

Robert’s concerto for violin and chamber orchestra An Eventful Morning Near East London has been selected for performance at the ISCM World New Music Days in Sweden. After a national call for submissions, the piece was selected to represent South Africa alongside a number of other works. The WNMD takes place in three cities in Sweden (Visby, Vaxjo and Goteborg/Vastra Goteland) this year between 24 September and 4 October.

FEBRUARY 2009: The Wigmore gets juice-y

Watch out for funky vocal trio juice’s Wigmore Hall debut on 6 April. Performing for the Park Lane’s Groups Monday Platform series, juice’s set includes a performance of Robert’s Words alongside a premiere by Gabriel Prokofiev and other contemporary pieces.

JANUARY 2009: Flights into Darkness

The end of March sees the premiere of Flights into Darkness, a contemporary melodrama created collaboratively with actor Tom Frankland and pianist Jakob Fichert. The piece brings together texts from two disturbing fin-de-siécle novellas - Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey and Arthur Schnitzler’s Flight into Darkness.

This will be heard at both The Warehouse in London (24 March) and the Jacqueline du Pré Hall in Oxford (27 March). Please see the diary pages for further details.

JANUARY 2009: Africa premiered

A song recital by Claire Booth (soprano) and Andrew Matthews-Owen (piano) for the BMIC Cutting Edge Tour on 30 January saw the world premiere of Robert’s song Africa, which sets a text by French-African poet David Diop. Hosted by Bromsgrove Concerts, the recital took place in the excellent acoustic of Bromsgrove’s Artrix arts venue. The Birmingham Post described the piece as

a fascinating depiction of post-war liberation struggles...This began with the charm of a mesmerising rocking rhythm leading to angst and passion.

The Cutting Edge Tour includes two more concerts by this duo - on 3 March at Cardiff University, and on 11 March at Cheltenham Town Hall for the Cheltenham Contemporary Concerts series.

Please see the diary pages for more details of these concerts.

More information about The Cutting Edge Tour can be found at www.bmic.co.uk

JANUARY 2009: Clariphonics at the Purcell Room

As part of their excellent recital for the Park Lane Group New Year Series 2009, clarinet quartet Clariphonics performed the world premiere of the piece commissioned from Robert, Glimpses of a Half-Forgotten Future. Both the recital and the piece received favourable reviews, with The Times having this to say:

Best of all was the world premiere of Glimpses of a half-forgotten future by the South African composer Robert Fokkens: sad, strange and scarcely five minutes’ worth of unquiet fragments that expressed more than anything else they had played.

DECEMBER 2008: A new choral piece published

For the January/February 2009 edition, Choir and Organ magazine commissioned Robert to write a motet for their regular New Music feature. The motet, Ave verum corpus, is for SSAATTBB and can be reproduced and used for free for 6 months. To view the score as a PDF and to read about the piece, please visit

www.rhinegold.co.uk/magazines/choir_and_organ/features_and_reviews/choir_organ_new_music.asp

DECEMBER 2008: We finally get to Langa...

After a last-minute technical glitch prevented the first performance of Robert’s Cycling to Langa at rarescale’s 5th birthday concert in September, Carla Rees (alto and bass flutes) and Michael Oliva (electronics) of rarescale premiered the piece on 13 December 2008 at St Leonard’s, Shoreditch.

DECEMBER 2008: Sounds Underground appointment

Robert has been appointed Artistic Director of independent new music organisation Sounds Underground.

Please visit www.soundsunderground.org/index.html for more information about Sounds Underground.

OCTOBER 2008: Strings and sticks and...

Sounds Underground, an independent organisation devoted to the promotion of new music in the UK, presented a concert on 24 October at the remarkable Bishopsgate Institute in which Tom Hankey (violin) and Oliver Coates (cello) presented the UK premiere of the complete version of Robert’s Tracing Lines. The concert, entitled strings and sticks and... included some remarkable music by Larry Goves, Anna Meredith, Matt Rogers and others.

SEPTEMBER 2008: Back in the UK

Robert recently returned from South Africa, where he presented lectures and worked with young composers at UNISA (Pretoria), the University of Stellenbosch, the University of Cape Town, the University of Pretoria, and North West University (Potchefstroom), and gave a paper at the annual conference of South Africa’s musicological society SASRIM at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth.

During his visit he was also a faculty member for New Music South Africa’s annual New Music Indaba, held at UNISA and the University of the Witwatersrand between 1-7 September. For the Indaba, he ran composer workshops for emerging composers from South Africa and Nigeria with London-based ensemble The Chamber Music Company led by pianist Mark Troop. Along with the premiere of a short piece in response to Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time given by The Chamber Music Company, he was also privileged to hear Julie-Anne Derome (violin) and Gabriel Prynn (cello) of Canadian piano trio Trio Fibonacci give the premiere of the full version of Tracing Lines.

At New Music South Africa’s AGM, held at the New Music Indaba, Robert was also honoured to be voted vice-president of NMSA.

For more information about New Music South Africa, please visit www.newmusicsa.org.za/index.html

MAY 2008: sheepdip in Hoxton

Marvellous vocal trio juice will be performing sheepdip as part of their set for Nonclassical at the Macbeth pub in Hoxton on Wednesday 4 June. It should be a great night, with other acts including Laura Moody (amazing singer/cellist), Three and Easy Trio, and Richard Lannoy.

MAY 2008: Tracing Lines to Australia

The 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 mutterings

Robert 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
Martin Rein Organ, Alda Dizdari Violin, Lefki Karpodini Piano,
Richard Russell Clarinet, Jessica Borough Cello

Organ Pieces
Theme with variations for Violin and Piano
Quartet for the End of Time

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 Africa

April 2008: 48 hours of contemporary music in the Ukraine

April 2008: A visit (NOT a safari…) to South Africa

March 2008: SAMRO awards commission for Belgian premiere

March 2008: rarescale celebrates its 5th birthday

March 2008: Africa premiere

January 2008: Histrionics at the Purcell Room