Piano Solo
1989 Fall Piece (4’)
Chromatic harmonies and changing colours. A piece to mark the autumnal hues of that year as well as the fall of the Berlin Wall.
1997 Mono Lake I & II (5’)
Composed after a visit to the Sierra Nevada, California. This saline lake has a productive eco- system: many migratory birds come to feed on the brine shrimp and brine fly, the pupae of which have always been an important food source for the Kutzadika’a people. That day the sun shone across the strange tufa formations emerging from the still surface.
1997 San Francisco Sketches (8’)
1 The Church on Judah
2 Alcatraz
The first piece describes a long walk down towards the ocean one Sunday morning and overhearing the sounds from a gospel church. The second a kind of barcarolle for an island in the SF bay, sacred to the Indians long before it became an infamous prison island. This piece was originally composed for synthesizers and appears on Mark’s CD “Hollowed Ground”.
1998 Earthbow (5’)
Another piece from the same album. “The moderately bouncy African jive of this piece is as cheerful as Lockett gets. He shares with [Robert] Wyatt the knack of conjuring up a particular English moody atmosphere, like a tango that’s run out of petrol near Stockton-on-Tees…” Clive Bell – The Wire
1998/2012/2016 Ezra’s Waltz I, II & III (about 3’ each)
For our son Ezra, composed on his 0th, 14th, and 18th birthdays
1999 Ode to a darkened cheese-shaped room (5’)
An enduring memory of a hotel of faded grandeur in Toulouse. A strange wedge of a room with high ceiling, windows open onto the Place du Capitole below; the rising heat, the swallows, the street sounds, the late afternoon light fading to dusk.
2000 Neverness (5’)
2003 La Source Miraculeuse (8’)
A piece that plays with the acoustic resonance of a large church, composed for the basilica of Notre Dame de Marceille in Limoux on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. The miraculous spring nearby was believed to cure eyesight problems and bears the inscription MILLE MALI SPECIES VIRGO LEVAVIT AQUA (these waters blessed by the Virgin Mary will relieve a thousand illnesses of sight)
2004/2013 Megh/phone (25’)
Originally written for piano and live electronics for Le Son Miré, the annual festival of electroacoustic music in Fabrezan. The version piano solo uses the same Hindustani rainy season raga which drifts in and out of obscurity.
2005 Five Bagatelles for accordion (12')
2006 12 Velvet Suits (5’)
Piano solo version to my homage to Erik Satie, recorded on the CD “Hollowed Ground” with a great acoustic bass guitar solo played by Trevor Lines
2006 The Detachable Waltz (10’)
A simple waltz subjected to a cut-up technique inspired by the poet Jackson Mac Low – re-assembled in 6 different versions.
2005/2007 The Big Haiku (80’)
A slightly ironic title given the length of the work. 17 pieces written on the 17th day of 17 consecutive months, with the object that each is finished on the same day without revision. Between composition and improvisation, an abstract journal of living in the moment.
2011 What is this Cameron-Clegg Alliance? (7’)
A music student in Newcastle wrote a piece for me entitled “Who is this Thatcher, anyway?” in 1982. We have remained friends ever since. This was written for a concert at the Friends’ Meeting House in Brighton on for his 50th birthday.
2011/2012 Winter Leaves (90’)
The many small pieces in 19th century piano literature entitled feuille d’album, albumblatt, or album leaf were intended as gifts to friends, admirers or acquaintances, rather than being destined to a publisher. Winter Leaves cycle of 49 piano pieces, composed one every day over the months of December 2011 and January 2012, each one dedicated to an artist or musician friend.
2012 Objets révolutionnaires 1 – 3 (10’)
- Cuve
- Tonneau
- Pressoir
The first three pieces in a projected series of 30, based on the French revolutionary calendar, a decimal system of dividing time, created and implemented during the French Revolution from 1793 to 1805 when it was abandoned. The months were divided into three “weeks” or “decades” of 10 days each, named after trees, flowers, fruits and flowers, but every 10th or “décadi” was named after an object or agricultural tool. The pieces are composed on the relevant day.
2013 Fecos (50’)
The folklorique carnival of Limoux, or Fécos, is accompanied every weekend for three months by band of brass players (with snare and bass drum) who play a repertoire of tunes whose diverse origins include operetta, popular songs, classical pieces and Occitan folk tunes. This cycle of virtuoso arrangements, or rather re-compositions, explores seventeen of these tunes.
2014 The 158th Book (2’)
Composed as an introduction to a broadcast reading of Kate A. Hardy’s short story by the same name.
2016 Arbor Low (12’)
Sometimes referred to as the 'Stonehenge of the Peak District', Arbor Low is a Neolithic henge monument atmospherically set amid high moorland. Aspects of the symmetry and geographical situation were used in the musical structure of the piece, which was composed for the 2016 Wirksworth Festival in Derbyshire.
2017 Waltz of the Tree Sprites (6’)
Written for the beginner ballet class of the Carcassonne Conservatoire and their end-of-year show.
2017 Mr Nivla’s Waltz in 4/4 time (6’)
An exercise in 4s against 3s originally composed for accordion, for an artist/film-maker friend Alvin Booth
Score available here
2018 The Eleven Stones of Ndut Lieng Krak (55’)
« Nous avons eu la bonne fortune au cours de notre mission chez les Mnong Gar de découvrir un ensemble de onze grandes lames en pierre taillée. Peu après leur arrivée au Musée de l’Homme, M. A. Schaeffer reconnut en dix d’entre elles des élements de lithophone...Ndut Lieng Krak se trouve en pays montagneux et couvert de forêts, habitat de ces nombreuses tribus proto-indochinoises » George Condominas : Chargé de Recherches à l’Office de la Recherche Scietifique outre-mer 1952
The eleven stones of the title refer to an archaeological discovery in 1952 by French ethnologist Georges Condominas who was on a government mission in central Vietnam. The villagers showed him a set of eleven long sculpted stones. It was confirmed that they were a prehistoric musical instrument. Each stone contains information in terms of the geological memories, floods, earthquakes, and accidents to the stone itself - bursting, hammering, burying, etc. the piano pieces are interspersed with electroacoustic interludes which explore different types of gamelan, Asian percussion, and texts in French and Vietnamese from the artists Christian Hadengue and Tien Lê Thua. This work represents a collaboration for the exhibition "The Infinity of the Mirror" at the French Institute in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2018.
2020-23 The Londonia Suite (20’)
- Street Scene
- The Parkplace
- The Rag-and-bone Rag
- Nettle ale at the Time and Tide
- Parrot’s funeral
- Audio book theme
An evocation of scenes from Kate Hardy’s novel “Londonia”, a dystopian vision of the capital city in 2073. First performed for the launch event in Spitalfields, along with the ambient “Londonia Soundscape”.
2020/21 Spring Flowers (30’)
Continuing the ‘feuille d’album’ idea of Winter Leaves, these pieces are dedicated to musician friends. The first Covid-19 lockdown was marked by an absence of cars and other human activity. Being much more aware of awakening Spring, birdsong and flowers coming into bloom, these pieces celebrate this strange passage of time.
- Grape Hyacinth
- Spotted Deadnettle
- Spurge
- Hoary Rock Rose
- Bastard Balm
- Early Spider Orchid
- Dog-tooth Violet
- Wild Garlic
- Cowslip
- Valerian
- The Periwinkle Waltz
- The Nodding Scabious
- Bastard Toadflex
- Forget-me-Not
- Rambling Rector
- Snake's Head Fritillary
- Wisteria
- Brakish Water Crowfoot
Score excerpt for Rambling Rector available here
Piano 4 Hands/2 Pianos
1982/2023 Sonata Errata– duet (10’)
1983 19 to the Dozen – duet (4’)
1983 Intermezzo – duet (6’)
1984 Barcarolle – 2 pianos (5’)
1984 Heavy-Set – 2 pianos (3’)
1985 Gershwin Arrangements - piano duet with voice (15’)
- What is this thing called love?
- It ain’t necessarily so
- Someone to watch over me
1995 El Cubano da Ronda - duet (4’)
1996 Walking Tune, after Percy Grainger – 2 pianos (5’)
2006 Il Court, il Court, le Furet et d’autres chansons d’enfance – duet (10’)
Teaching pieces, reworking well-known French nursery rhymes for young students
- Promenons-nous dans les bois
- Excuse me, do you know how to plant cabbages?
- Le bon Roi Dagobamba
- A la Claire fontaine
- Quand j’étais petite fille
- Il était une bergère
- Alouette
- Se Canto
- Il court,il court, le furet
- (Au) clair de (la) lune
2013 Ladrang Balabak – 2 pianos 6 hands (8’)
An arrangement of a traditional Javanese gending, written in anticipation of a gamelan project at the Carcassonne Conservatoire 2013 - 2017.
2016 Mnong Gar – duet (10’)
The programme note from the 1st performance in Paris:
Quand je commence à faire mes études de gamelan je suis fasciné par les origines mysterieuses de cette musique et je me mis à faire des recherches sur les idiophones métalliques de l’Asie de sud-est (la musique du gamelan on entend le plus souvent à Bali est une création du Xxème siècle). Un jour je trouve par hasard un vieux disque vinyl de musique vietnamienne du “Mnong Gar”, un peuple proto-indochinois, enregistré par l’anthropologue Georges Condominas, qui s’installe dans un village de population Mnong Gar, au centre du Vietnam, c’est avec un désir d’immersion complète. Il entend dépasser une certaine ethnographie indochinoise, œuvre de missionnaires ou d’administrateurs à laquelle ont manqué l’expérience d’une intimité et les méthodes que réclame une démarche professionnelle. Pour lui, partager le quotidien des villageois est la condition nécessaire ; analyser le plus fidèlement possible la vie sociale dans ses multiples dimensions, à l’aide de techniques d’enquête éprouvées, devient l’objectif. Il s’agit de « participer à la vie d’un village pendant un an au moins, de façon à suivre le déroulement d’un cycle agraire en son entier ». Cette expérience est documentée dans ses deux livres : “Nous avons mangé la forêt” (1954) et “L’Exotique est quotidien” (1965) En écoutant ce disque j’étais étonné par la beauté de cette ancienne polyphonie de gongs plats, joués en cercle ou en procession.
Cette composition ne s’inspire pas directement de cette musique, sauf un peu dans ses complexités rhythmiques, mais c’est plutôt un hommage à Condominas, ce grand ethnologue français, anticolonialiste, qui a farouchement dénoncé le gouvernement des Etats-Unis devant une commission de l’ONU pour son rôle dans l’ethnocide des Mnong Gar pendant la guerre de Vietnam.
L’oeuvre est dédié au duo Sadhana : Cécile Chanu et Vanessa Sanfillipo.
Quartets and Larger Ensembles
1997 Seventh Heaven clarinet x 2, trumpet, trombone, piano, string quartet, bass guitar, percussion x 2
A commission from the Charlie Barber Ensemble, with funds made available by the Welsh Arts Council, for a concert entitled From Bali to New York. The piece is built around a dominant seventh chord, imitating the rhythms and figurations of the giant bamboo instruments heard in the Balinese music jegog.
2001 Recompositions for violin, guitar, alto sax, trombone, piano, bass and drums
I was invited by the IKON Gallery director to collaborate with the conceptual artist Graham Gussin on a project about the famous Midlands' road intersection known locally as "spaghetti junction" (officially the Gravelly Hill Interchange) My contribution was to arrange themes from road movies for the ensemble but writing the scores from right to left so in effect they're played backwards.
- Reversedmainthemeparistexax
- Reversedlavilleinhumainealphaville
- Reversedmainthemebullit
- Reversedcarcrashnorthbynorthwest
- Reversedthefinalchasemadmax
- Reversedroadcrossingtheswimmer
- Reversedflightnorthbynorthwest
- Reversedeuropeendlesskraftwerk
- Reversedopeningsequence- vanishingpoint
- Reversedforebodinginthevast- landscapemadmax
- Reversedthecrashnorthbynorthwest
- Reversedshiftinggearsbullit
- Reversedlavilledétraquéealphaville
- Reversednothingoutthereparistexas
2004 Holding Together for orchestra, electric guitars, steel pans and choir
This work was written for the Aston Performing Arts Academy and is dedicated to all the young musicians and their tutors. When starting work on this project and feeling somewhat daunted about how to write for this unconventional and unique orchestra I decided to consult the I Ching. The book came back with the answer “Holding Together” and these words seemed so appropriate I’ve borrowed them as a title. For me they say something about the fundamental importance of music for everyone, about how music educates people and binds them together socially, and particularly about the sense of purpose and solidarity behind the Aston Performing Arts Academy, a bold initiative to put music at the core of the curriculum, in a project devised to cater for young people who had been expelled from school.
The “I Ching” or “Book of Changes” is an ancient Chinese oracle in 64 sections whose central theme is the continuous change and transformation underlying all existence. The text of hexagram No. 8 (Pi or Holding Together) talks about holding on to one’s inner independence in the face of all challenges, going straight ahead, keeping ourselves alert, steady, and serene as a shining lake.
2008 From Stardust to Life for violin solo, string quartet, keyboards, sitar, kanjira, mrdangam and choir (40')
Co-composed with Praveen D Rao and recorded in Bangalore for the Chitraleka Dance Company's production by the same name.
2012 Quirbajou for piano duet, 2 flutes and string orchestra (8')
Composed for a residential summer course in the Aude, the piece takes as a starting point a composition by 17th century audois composer Etienne Moulinié "Enfin la beauté que j'adore"
2013 Escouloubre for 2 or more pianos, marimba and xylophone (8')
A companion piece to Quirbajou, also named after an audois village, based on a fragment from another 17th century audois composer Guillaume Bouzignac and his song "Heu ! Unus ex vobis me tradet hodie"
2015 Shukosho for orchestra (15')
Written for a French junior conservatoire orchestra, as part of a course intended as an introduction to Asian music. This piece recreates the sound-world of a 9th century gagaku orchestra with its 3 categories of instruments, winds, plucked strings, and percussion (small rototom, anvil and bass drum). Possibly the slowest music ever created.
Piano Quartet
Piano Quartet score here