Late Night Klara

I was on Belgian Radio recently with a selection of pieces that I chose as being important to my musical development. A kind of "Desert Island Disks" but where you hear each piece throughout, and the show lasts for two hours...

Satie, Skempton, Glass, Dowland, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Nic Jones, David Munrow, and a couple of my pieces chosen by the producer.

Listen again here:

Late Night "Last Call" Klara

Under the Vaulted Sky

Tickets are now on sale for my latest piece - the third collaboration with award-winning choreographer Rosemary Lee for the piece "Under the Vaulted Sky". It's a site-specific piece for the cathedral of trees in Milton Keynes, and uses a 100-strong cast of dancers, tuned percussion and trombones to create a unique promenade performance through the site. Click on the orange title below for times and ticket details:

Under the Vaulted Sky

Three-holed pipe

Here is the latest instrument from my workshop - a three-holed pipe in "d" made from locally grown sycamore. I will be making other keys later this year, and plan to make the tabors that go with them by next year. Please feel free to contact me for prices.

Under the Vaulted Sky

My latest commission for the brilliant choreographer Rosemary Lee is the music for a series of performances later this year to take place in the tree cathedral at Milton Keynes. This is my third collaboration with Rosemary and we have a beautiful space to fill with sound and movement. Very exciting!

Webite for The Milton Keynes Cathedral of Trees

The Long Silence...

... has been due to a year of settling in, building, organising and making connections. 

I'm now accompanying for dance classes for Adèle Thompson, the Dance Artist in Residence at Queen's College Cambridge; repairing woodwind for Millers Music in Cambridge (and others); have exhibited at the Early Music Exhibition in Greenwich in November 2012; had a piano piece published by ABRSM last autumn; and have a new commission for a choral piece using the writings of Hildegard of Bingen for the North Hertfordshire Guild of Singers to take to Bingen in Germany later this year.

Visit the luthier side of my site to see the developments there.

Finally for 2011...

The Mann family has left East London after many, many generations, and is now in the process of settling into village life in Cambridgeshire. The new (400-year-old) house has plenty of space, and room for a decent luthier workshop and composition studio. I shall remain silent for some time now as I start to set up everything and do the work necessary for both home and work. Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Square Dances

The automated bell machine and score are finished, and rehearsals are well under way for Square Dances, with the choregrapher Rosemary Lee. It is being performed six times each day on Saturday 8th October and Sunday 9th October.

Venue and times:
Woburn Square WC1, 10.30am & 11.30am; 12.30pm, 2.30pm, 3.30pm & 4.30pm

Rosemary Lee's "Square Dances"

My current commission is for a piece for an automated bell machine (of my own making) for the fantastic British choreographer Rosemary Lee's Square Dances, for October 2011.  I last worked with her on the large-scale piece Common Dance in 2009, which involved 50 dancers and my music for large choir, sound score and a lone border piper.  I relish these unusual commissions.  Here is a short film from the Guardian made during the making of Common Dance.