Four-Minute Facelift

I wrote my four minute opera, The Sands of Time, (with writer Simon Rees), twenty years ago for a one-off performance. It had to be composed very quickly and I didn’t produce the neatest score in the world.

Twenty years on it’s still getting performances every year and each time I feel a bit more embarrassed about the old score. At the end of November, Intimate Opera of Indianapolis are giving four performances, so I asked Michael McCartney to produce a newly engraved score.

Michael is a highly skilled music editor and has produced a beautifully laid out and proportioned score so that the performers will have better materials to work with.

For details of Intimate Opera's forthcoming production, see http://www.intimateopera.org/IntimateOpera/Performances.html

Listen to a recording of the premiere https://soundcloud.com/peter-reynolds-2/the-sand-of-time-an-opera-in

Autumn Festival in Flanders

The Transit Festival of contemporary music in Leuven, Flanders, is one of my favourite destinations. A packed weekend of music and talks – there’s almost no time to eat!

In between events I enjoyed the wonderful medieval town, bathed in autumn sunlight. Its town hall is one of the most impressive gothic buildings in Europe.

I heard lots of fabulous new pieces and performers, including an excellent new commission from Bernhard Lang based on Boris Karloff’s Dracula films and incorporating bits of their soundtracks – fun, but also tough and challenging. Today I’m writing up a review of the weekend for Tempo. 

More details at Transit’s website www.festivalvlaamsbrabant.be/programma/transit