2024 round-up: iPhone EP/book | Media Composing | ECSA-AEC/ORA Composition Mentoring | Directing | Writing

Photo by A Corcoran

2024 was more of a nose-to-the grindstone year than one of harvest. Here’s what happened:

iPhone EP’s/Book

My iPhone EP’s/book secretly premiered to those who received them as they were intended to be received & listened to - via text message to their phones - & their lives were marked in secret, just how they were made. How better to explore intimacy as a theme? (At least, I think so). If you have my phone number (!) I’ll send them over. I feel I may well do something more with this, but for the time being what happened on the iphone stays on the iphone.

Composing

It was not lost on me that in a year where I’m tying up creative work/research on the themes of intimacy, secrecy, and privacy, I was drafted into media projects that then required this of me. 2024 ended up being unexpectedly busy composing for media & I was more-or-less off-radar most of the year finishing some rather intricate & lacy sound design for an audiobook - I very much hope this gets released as I got to do one of my all-time favourite things & create my own palette using prepared piano. As these things often go, there was an escalation and flow here that led to composing sound & voicing segments for a film, a documentary, & then later language supervising an animation. I have fond memories of editing scores late into the night in the hum of summer heat.

Directing

With the composing keeping me indoors it was great to get out & interact with some humans. This year I was invited to coach an acapella group on arranging for voices & performing as a group ahead of some competitions.

Writing

I wrote 10 new blogs & have a whole lot more planned & nearly finished. This continues to be a fun & useful outlet I can direct my students to.

In the meantime I’ve also prepared a book submission connected to - yes, you guessed it - another album and tour I am putting together based on some research that arose out of my doctorate… with luck there’ll be more on this in 2025.

Mentoring

The European Commission-funded ECSA-AEC Allience scheme tied up in Milan in November, & it was great to see my composition mentee Liza Bec doing so well (their album due out early 2025). I also completed another round of composition mentoring for the ORA Singers & more of their wonderful young composers.

Looking to the year ahead, it looks like this will be a year of balancing pitching - my book, tour, and a new choral piece - with writing some long-awaited string arrangements for some songs &, fingers crossed, hopefully more media work. Maybe because I’ve been working with photos these past years too, I’ve been getting ideas for videos recently, so let’s see. As ever, I will keep you posted, & wish you a prosperous & productive 2025.