7 Exercises in Style
Solo Tenor and Ensemble (14 mins)
7 Exercises in Style is a setting of Raymond Queneau’s novella Exercises in Style (1947), which is a retelling of the same banal story but in 99 different rhetorical styles. The piece is out of keeping with my other works to date, but allowed me to explore a lighter and more whimsical approach to composition which relieved me of the typical creative burdens of writing music.
Throughout the piece, I indulge in a number of musical faux pas such as pastiche, slap-stick humour and deliberately crude instrumental writing resulting in what one audience member referred to as a ‘vaudeville cabaret of contemporary music’. The piece was awarded first prize in the Philip Bates Composition Award at Birmingham Conservatoire in 2017.
