Michael Christie
Michael Christie studied ’cello, composition and piano at the Royal College of Music (1975-79), where he won the Bliss Prize. His composition teacher was Herbert Howells, CH. He also studied the bass viol with Francis Baines, and later the double bass with Liz Hosford. As a freelance ’cellist he worked with various orchestras in the UK, including shows in the West End. His music theatre work with ensembles such as the Lindsay Kemp Company took him on tours to Spain, Italy, Venezuela and the Shetland Islands. In 1989 he was commissioned by the Royal Opera House ‘Garden Venture’ to write a chamber opera, The Standard Bearer, which was performed at the Donmar Warehouse. He wrote a number of music theatre pieces for Dartington Summer Music and also for the company which he co-founded with Susannah Self, Selfmade Music Theatre, with whom he has toured in Spain, Syria and throughout the UK. As a professional educator he has specialised in teaching ‘cello, double bass, recorder, composition and creative class music, and has written much music for use in his teaching. He was for many years a peripatetic instrumental tutor in a number of schools in North London, and has been a teacher of composition and musical awareness at the Junior Guildhall since 1998. He has also led many composition projects in schools for the English Sinfonia.
His song, Spår, was performed in 2012 at the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, by the Swedish soprano Nina Stemme, accompanied by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. The setting of a poem by Thomas Tranströmer, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in November 2011, was well received. The song is the first of a cycle of seven songs, setting poems by Tranströmer and Bodil Malmsten.
Recent pieces which have received acclaim include his partita for saxophone quartet, Drolleries, and a fantasy for clarinet and piano, The Pond.
1. Glad Rags; 2. Puppet Dance; 3. The Lonesome Trail; 4. Hopping Dance; 5. The Toy Soldier; 6. Dancing Bear; 7. Song; 8. Steppin’ Out; 9. Solemn Dance; 10. Land of the Brave; 11. Calm River; 12. Reminiscence; 13. Off to the Races; 14. Jaunty Dance; 15. Dance Again; 16. Moseyin’ Along; 17. Petite Allemande; 18. Deep Musings; 19. Quiet Stream; 20. Riding Along; 21. Rocking Away; 22. On the Promenade.
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1. Tango-ish; 2. Rock of Ages; 3. Slow Waltz; 4. Slow Turtle Dance; 5. A Walk in the Park; 6. A Song Sung Low; 7. Pavana Minore-Maggiore; 8. Pensivo; 9. A Song; 10. Easy Does It; 11. Allegretto grazioso; 12. Fanfare; 13. Fun with Fourths; 14. Lute-song for Jumbo; 15. Marcia alla Rondo; 16. Swing it!; 17. Penguins; 18. La Scala Elegante; 19. Invention in A.
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1. Little March; 2. Little Polka; 3. Trumpet Tune; 4. Striding along; 5. Romance; 6. Fanfare; 7. A Solemn Music; 8. Canone all’Unisuono.
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1. Cello Tune; 2. Wolfie’s String-Crossing Tune; 3. Cara mia*; 4. Chromatic Study; 5. Air; 6. Henry’s Dance; 7. Midnight Shuffle; 8. Louie’s Little Scherzo.
*with violin (flute, oboe) or clarinet obbligato.
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With advice on technique.
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1. The Spinning Wheel; 2. Más Amor; 3. Sea Scale Ride; 4. Chaconne à son Goût: l’Apothéose de l’Arpège; 5. Invention; 6. Scherzo alla spiccato.
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Texts by James Joyce.
Each of these four poems, from ‘Pomes Penyeach’, James Joyce's second (and last) collection of published poems, encapsulates a brief memory of something important in his life: observing his sporty brother wielding the oars of a racing scull at Trieste; a delicate white rose flower given to his daughter; a story of a tragic romance that ended in death for the hopeless swain; his impressions of the swash of the sea against the rocks. I was taken by Joyce’s ability to suggest his private moments of epiphany in such succinct poems. Like his poems, the cycle contains no overt dramas, no heart-racing excitements. Instead, each one is a reflective gloss on the evocative revelations of Joyce’s personal insights.
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John Drinkwater’s poem, 'Pierrot', is somewhat untypical of his usual output of charming pastoral and domestic observations. To me, this poem suggests a rather darker and more psychological side to his work, set in the fantasy world of the Commedia dell’Arte. Pierrette, on her apple bough, is cynically wooed by Pierrot and succumbs to his charm. He, of course, is not at all serious about this little affair, and quickly disappears, leaving Pierrette to weep alone, thus recapitulating the cruel treachery of all faithless lovers. The story-telling nature of the poem has allowed me to include sprechstimme contributions from the ensemble, as well as a degree of theatricality in the setting for solo mezzo-soprano.
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Address
United Music Publishing
71 Chedburgh Road,Bury St Edmunds,
Suffolk,
IP29 5QU.