Future Classic Women Awards – Angela Slater

Hello and welcome to feature Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on women's radio station, the program where we search for the most amazing new female artist on the classical panorama. Today on future Classic Women Awards, we have the wonderful Angela Slater that she's coming back with their fantastic program that's called Illuminate. Good morning, Angela. Good morning. Thank you for having me. How are you? Yes, I'm good, thank you. Here in cloudy Stafford, we have a wonderful Sunday in London, but you know how it is, it's spring, so the beauty of spring that it come and goes, isn't it? Indeed, yes. So we are still recording our program live, but in remote. So how was that? Because, you know, we're starting to reopen things in London and that's wonderful in the whole uk, really, thanks to the vaccination program and, you know, the new good results on the COVID pandemic. How was the lockdown for you, Angela? Yeah, the lockdown has been a difficult process, as it has for all of us. I think perhaps it's been not quite so difficult for composers as we were already quite used to sort of working from home and by ourselves. But I think what I found a little tricky was the sense of knowing anything I wrote wasn't going to get a live performance, which is what sort of led me to create this Connected Skies project that I've created, because I wanted something that I could create which would give performers space to actually really learn some new music that they could actually record and perform. And for me to know that it was actually going to be heard as well, even though it was on a digital format. And also I just felt like as though, you know, composition is obviously my sort of outlet of expression and I needed a space in which to do that explicitly within the six solo pieces within this Connected Skies project. So that's wonderful. So when did you start this project? So the idea came to me in the summer of 2020. I sensed that things weren't going to fully open, as everything seemed to be suggesting. I just didn't feel like as though that was realistic. So I'd met the double bassist that started this project virtually at Tanglewood. So unfortunately, I wasn't able to go to the us which would have been brilliant, of course. And it began to sort of revolve around this poem I wrote. And I approached six other five other soloists and came up with this project where I was thinking, there's two performers in the us, there's two in Europe and two in the uk, And I was Thinking in these times where we're all sort of globally going through the same kind of thing, but disconnected. How could I sort of bring different, you know, experiences from around the world into one project? So I've sort of created almost like a song cycle of pieces, but with instrumentalists. So I have a piece for double bass that will hear a piece for solo cello, accordion, flute with glissando head joint, which was the last one just to premiere. And I'm looking forward to my solo percussion one and finally finish with a piece for mezzo soprano as well. Wonderful, wonderful. So you're totally right. I mean, I was so sure we would get the vaccine by September and we would be back to normal by octo, the latest. You're the optimist there. Oh, my gosh, how naive of me. I mean, I'm very. I'm very glad I received already my first vaccine and I can't wait to get the second one. And I think this is a ticket to freedom. I'm due as well, you know, to travel for master classes. We're going to organize things in Moscow and in Italy. So I can't wait to be able to travel again. But I've been all the time just in London. Did you just stay, you know, where did you say you are right now? I'm in Staffordshire. Yeah. I live on the edge of Stafford and it's not really a place that I particularly do a lot of music making in. I mean, me and my husband conduct the local Stafford Orchestra, which unfortunately has had to, you know, we did one last concert sort of the week before lockdown, which I'm glad we got in, you know, back in March 2020. And since then, you know, apart from a few attempts to do virtual online rehearsals with limited success, you know, that all of that has had to stop. But, you know, usually it's a place that's been very useful for its travel links. You know, trains down to London in an hour and I could go up to Manchester and so on. But what I have discovered, and I perhaps hadn't fully appreciated, is how much beautiful countryside there is from near me, because we'd often go on a short walk up. There's these country lanes. But we soon discovered actually there was, you know, two to three hours of walking beyond our step. So I've, you know, in a sense, sort of felt, I suppose, you know, disconnected from the rest of the uk, but more connected to. To where I live and have a better sense of what's here. So, you know, there has been some. Some sort of positive things to come from it. You know, you have to try and find the silver lining somewhere. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, definitely. You know, there was all these talks about the cities being empty and nature, in a way, getting back to it. Like in Venice, having these sw. Taking, you know, back the city in the water and. And even dolphins, you know, going through the town, the canals. It was really lovely. And here in London, I remember I would take my bike and go all the way around the city and it was beautiful. You know, you didn't risk your life, basically. So there was only people on their bikes. It was so wonderful and. And also were blessed with wonderful weather. So I got my very first bike and now we're back with another beautiful weather. It's very cold. It's not as warm as it was last year, but yeah, indeed. And also give us a sense of belonging and the sense of family between us musicians, I think between artists. We are all thriving towards the same goal that is to be connected through the music that we produce. Yes, exactly. And, you know, it felt so unusual to go for such a long time without sort of going to some kind of rehearsal, having some interaction. So, I mean, this. This Connected Skies project was very much an opportunity for me to deeply explore each instrument. And I had regular sort of zoom conversations. So with Maggie, I learned all about the double bass because I hadn't written for the double bass before I met her. And so she would send me lots of little clips of videos of her playing different bits of my work. And we would have a back and forth and it was so. It felt very much like a collaborative process, like you would have in real life, which, you know, is something, I think, quite beautiful, really, to try and achieve in this time. Of course, there was, you know, the annoying aspect of not being able to hear the same, you know, resonance of the sound in the room and, you know, zoom blocking the sound down. I know, I know. But I think in the circumstance, it was something, you know, still good to do. And we recorded all of these concerts in, you know, high quality audio and things. So I have got to hear, hear the ones that have had their premieres or, you know, albeit only in a digital way. So I do look forward to eventually when, you know, hopefully things get more back to normal, to hear these pieces with my own ears in real life. That will be, you know, that will be the end goal in the long run. Absolutely. Well, the first piece we're gonna listen to is called the Aching Space between for solo Double Pass and is performed by Maggie. You said this is inspired by a poem. Yes. Yeah, that's right. So I wrote this poem sort of while I was writing this piece. I often like to write poetry as a kind of stimulus or way to sort of frame a work and. Or just get me thinking. And in the end, I used this poem as sort of the inspiration for all the pieces and they take different lines of the poem. So perhaps I should read the poem to you. It's only short, so don't worry. Wonderful night. That's exactly what they want. It's so please. Yeah, so it goes like this. When the sky enclosed around me shrinking ever smaller, I found woven half dreams fractured in spaces in between which ache and scream. I tried to shut the noise out, but it echoed right back at me never to leave or fully be. So that's. That's the poem. So the idea of the aching space between takes takes the lines fractured in the spaces in between which ache and scream. So it's sort of an amalgamation of those two lines. And really this particular piece was trying to express something of the pain and the sort of emotional turmoil that we've associated with the sort of ongoing need to social distance and not really be able to sort of connect with our fellow humans, our friends and our families, which feels something so fundamental to being a human. So it's sort of about the almost aggressive, grief stricken feeling of that, but also sort of a more sorrowful line. So you hear it's sort of a juxtaposition of these kind of aggressive double bass gestures. And then I also explored with Maggie the really purity and soft tones that the double bass can achieve on its harmonics. And we also paired this with. With a little bit of singing from Maggie herself as well. And it sort of becomes a bit of a theme of this connection to the human voice throughout this project as well. Wonderful. Well, let's listen then. Aching Space Between Connected Skies by Angela Slater with Maggie Cox. Sh. Sam. It. It. Ram. And this was Aching Space Between Connected Skies by Angela Slater with the wonderful Maggie Cox at double bass from the U.S. so, Angela, how did you. How did you find Maggie, how did you find this incredible artist with whom you started this new project of Connected Sky Eyes? Well, I've never actually met Maggie in real life. Correct that. You know, hopefully in the Future, in summer 2020, I should have been going out to Tanglewood Music Festival as a composition fellow and worked on several pieces with different, you know, fellows of various instruments out there. But of course, like many things, the Pandemic put a stop to those plan. But Tanglewood did provide us with a virtual summer festival. And the composition fellows were paired with double bass fellows. And so I actually worked with Maggie on a piece before this called Her Daughter Yesterday, which again is quite reflective of the times. You could probably tell by the title. It's sort of a yearning for if we could somehow return. Return to what used to be normality. So I learned a lot with working through Maggie over sort of about probably the best part of a month on that piece, which you can you find online if anyone wishes to listen to it as well. So that really gave me a good sense of what the double bass could do. So I had basically a little bit of a break after writing that double bass piece. I think I finished that around August time and then started working with Maggie on this next one, sort of the middle of September and October time. So it wasn't too long. But I felt like as though I'd really sort of got a sense of the full capabilities of the double bass and also Maggie as a performer that she was willing to discover things about her instrument that she didn't know were possible. So it was. It, you know, there was certain harmonics. And then I was also exploring things that I've often used on string instruments like the violin and cello over bow pressure techniques. But I certainly hadn't found an example myself in the repertoire. And so that was quite curious to try and achieve those things because it's sort of a slightly different mechanism with the double bass bow and the thickness of the strings to get that type of thing to work. And yeah, so it's just been a fantastic sort of discovery of the instrument with a performer that was so open to trying things. That's wonderful. One thing, you know, of course we understand that the double bass is not your instruments, but what did you started learning when you were a child? Which instruments instrument is your main instrument apart from composing? Well, I first started learning the piano when I was 7, but I would say my main instrument is the flute. So, yeah, no string experience there at all really. And so I tend to compose at the piano and less often the flute. Though I did get my flute out the one of the latest pieces, which was a piece for flute with glissando head joint. So it's quite a bizarre piece for flutes. But. So I did use my flute for composing then. But I mean, definitely it's impossible to apply the bow pressure technique to a piano. So you really had to. Did you learn how to play a little bit at least a string instrument or. Yes. So what I did. When I was doing my PhD in composition at the University of Nottingham, I kept finding certain teachers would say, oh, that's not possible on the cello or the violin or whatever it was. And I'd always wanted to learn to play the cello when I was younger. So I bought myself a very cheap, probably, you know, nasty cello. Yeah, you know, every cellist would probably cringe at. But it was, it allowed me to explore the instruments. I sort of. I sort of taught myself to, you know, kind of grade 5ish levels. Wow. Okay. I. I think I've slipped back since then, but it allowed me to explore the cello and find all its, its sounds and the kind of, more broadly speaking, the, the string sort of technique sounds. And I think also not having been formally trained in the instrument of what, you know, I did my research on the correct techniques and everything, but perhaps I wasn't so sort of, you know, sort of forced into those kind of what's expected. And so, you know, composers are always curious and trying to find new sounds and. And sometimes, essentially by doing what would be deemed as bad technique, can actually find some AM sounds on string instruments. So I still use that whenever I'm, you know, either writing a string quartet or any solo string instrument, I will go and get my cello out and have a play around. And I always think that's also a useful, you know, indication for me of if I can play this myself, albeit perhaps very slowly, then it's going to be something that a performer can definitely get their head around and fingers around as well. Well, you know, I have so much more questions to ask you about instruments, but first, because we talk so much about the cello, let's listen to your next piece that is from the Connected Skies Project, and it's called Woven Half Dreams performed by Sarah Gates. Does this has a poem as well attached to it? Yeah, so it's the same poem, so I won't read it again. But the third line down has the line, I found Woven half dreams. And so they're all connected almost like a song cycle through this poem. And while this Woven Half Dreams, I think all musicians will be able to connect with just this feeling of keep trying to keep being positive and creating plans, but them somehow not being able to hold on to them and they somehow fade and, you know, I don't know, sort of twist out of reach or something. So, yeah, it was all these kind of weaving lines and everything and trying to create plans. But yeah, ultimately, particularly at that time when I was writing this piece, which was November 2020, I kept having everything cancelled so it felt very cathartic to write this. Wonderful. Well, you know, I think I said wrong the title. Would you say the title, please? Oh, yes, it's called Woven Half Dreams. Woven Half Dreams, Wonderful. Let's listen to. It, Sam. And this was Woven of Dreams by Angela Slater, who performed at the Cello by Sarah Gate from the uk. So Angela, I mean, really beautiful piece and cello is such a warm instrument, has a special sound, isn't it? Oh yes, the cello is a particular beautiful sound and I've always been drawn to its, its quality. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you, you know, you've been exploring different instruments when you were a child, did you dream about playing specific instrument apart from the piano and the flute, or that was the instrument you liked the most when you were little? Yeah, I think I must have done. I remember there was, you know, a whole load of instrumentalists came to the school and after that we got to sort of choose which instrument we would like to learn. I think these were all sort of wind instruments, so, you know, saxophones and clarinets and so on. And I remember wanting to learn the flute because I thought it had such a beautiful sound to it. So that was. I think I must have already maybe been beginning piano lessons, so. Yeah, but with the flute. Yeah, it was from hearing it and I remember feeling really anxious as a child when I was told that, oh, we can only play the flute if you can. If, you know, after like a 10 minute session, you'll be able to like produce a sound over the head joint. So I remember having this session with some teacher and being desperate to make sure I could, could do this sound over the head joint and I think I must have done it because I was allowed to play the flute. But you know, as a child my mum has a piano in the house and she is quite a musical person herself and my brother was learning the piano when he was younger and I always wanted to sort of be making sounds so I'd often go to the piano and I'd probably just bang on it. But I've always been curious about sounds and creating them and when I was learning my instruments because I'm not a performer and this is probably why I would always get very distracted by mistakes I'd make and the chords that would come up and the sounds that would be produced so I wouldn't be very good at playing my scales. That's very interesting. I mean, I like the fact that you were more curious about the new course that by mistake you are producing Instead of, you know, being perfect. And I guess that's the difference. That's what makes a composer. No, I believe in the fact that somehow you are born to do something. And that proves it in a way, I think. Yes. That's wonderful. I always ask, you know, our guest if they knew that they would become a composer, if they wanted to become a solo concert artist or opera singer. And what about voice? You know, you composed the piece. I don't think we have it today. A piece for. Okay. Because it's not yet been performed yet, but it's. It's going to be the last one in the series and it will have its digital premiere, I think, on the 6th of June. So there's one more before that, which is for solo percussion, which will be on the 13th of May. And then this mezzo soprano. Yeah, with voice. When I was younger, I've never had any formal training in singing, but my sort of first, I suppose, kind of compositional explorations were really in songwriting as a teenager, which were with me singing along to the piano. That was like pop song. Yeah. I'd say they're kind of quite dramatic and quite sad in nature, but anyway, they weren't up in the style of Adele, something like that. I'm more like Muse or Evanescence. All right. You know, it was. Yeah, it was a bit like that, really. So. Yeah, well, you know, because people don't think that classical musicians are actually normal teenager too, you know, and they might like a normal rock or pop or. We had some artists that they are actually fan of hip hop and they go dancing in that style as well. So. Totally. I totally understand, of course. I mean, I think at that time I didn't realize that you could become a composer. I think it could be a job, you mean? Yeah. Or just. I think I thought it was something that was, you know, from the past and that people didn't still necessarily do it. I think I, you know, perhaps thought people did, you know, film music composition. But. Yeah, so it was quite sort of discovery, I suppose, at university. But I think I must have known on some level because when I first went to university, I actually started doing a pharmacy degree because I was very good at science and everything and it seemed like the, I suppose, sensible thing to do. But I stopped during the first term because I just missed music so much and it was always about composition. So I went home one weekend for, you know, just to see my parents and I started writing something at the piano. And I remember my mum said, oh, that's very good. And, I don't know, probably wasn't, but I remember just bursting into tears and saying to my mum, I need to do music. And it's always been about composing for me, with music. So she helped me swap courses and I haven't looked back, really. I might be a poorer person overall, financially speaking, but I think I'm much richer in. In many other ways for allowing myself to actually pursue composing and. And my natural curiosity for sounds and. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, someone asked me, what's music for me? And I was saying, you know, music is harmony, music is the world, is nature, is, you know, the. Is life. And when you're a compose, think even more because somehow you are producing that harmony. You are producing that. I'm producing it as a performer, you know, but I'm not generating it from. From zero. So that's something that comes from your soul. So definitely, I understand that. Going into tears because you wanted to. To do music and not something else. Yes, yeah, it was, yeah, something. Something deep, I think. And I always feel, when composing in itself, a desire to try and express something of myself and of my impression of the world, you know, albeit potentially in relation to nature or politics or otherwise. Oh, yeah. I think that's the only way to really be sort of authentic as a composer. Now a question. You know, writers, they go through period where they are blank. You know, they can't get a new idea to write. Do you have the same. As a composer, do you have moments where you somehow would like to compose but that idea doesn't come to you? I know people do suffer with writer's block and I'm touching wood here, but I don't tend to suffer with this too much. So I do find it can be quite tricky to compose if I have a lot of other sort of distractions in my life. I like to. Basically, I need a lot of headspace. I find a lot of the composing isn't necessarily even done at the sort of, you know, paper and pencil or on your laptop. It's actually what I like to call, you know, daydreaming time. Just sort of thinking about the piece and the sounds and it's like. As though it's all out of focus and you can't quite hear it in your mind's ear. And then it's somehow sort of, you know, it's like a lens changing and you can suddenly hear it more clearly. And, you know, I tend to sort of take quite a long time planning out a structure of the piece and having these other things associated with it, with poetry. And I sometimes paint as well. And painting can sometimes be a way of me again planning the piece in terms of there being kind of architecture to it, colours and textures. So it's just sort of like another form of expression and which I can then translate into composers. So probably a long winded answer to say. I thankfully don't seem to suffer too much from writer's block, but I do find that it can take me a long time to get back into a piece if I'm constantly sort of being disturbed by, well, life distractions, you know, I suppose, you know, maybe it's not writer's block, but it's just sort of getting my head back into the space that it needs to be. Because at the moment I'm writing a piece for the Royal Scottish Orchestra and it's like a seven minute symphony orchestra piece. Oh wow. I had a month off from it because I just had too much teaching and things. And I think it's like almost trying to push a boulder up a hill. If you. Or just along. If you keep, you know, sort of poking it, it will keep just rolling along nicely. But if you, if you stop and then you have to start again, then it's quite an. It's quite an effort. Absolutely. Well, the next piece we're gonna. Lisa, I can't wait to hear your piece with the Scottish orchestra. That would be phenomenal. But now we have Enclosing Skies for Accordion performed by Camilla Olas from Denmark. Let's listen to it, Sam. It. It. Sam. Wonderful. And this was Enclosing Skies by Angela Slaters performed by Camilla Olas. Now Angela, we're on the last part of our interview and I'd like to ask you what your next project. Well, my next project, Composition D. What is it? I'm not sure actually, but what I wanted to talk to you about, I have too many compositions on the go at the moment to be honest. But what I did wanted to talk to you about was the Illuminate Women's Music digital concert series. You may remember that you had Illuminate Women's Music with me and Sarah on sort of back in 2019, I think. Yes, yes, in the second edition. That's right. And so Illuminate Women's Music in Normal Times is sort of touring concert series and I have different performers in residence each year and we commission, you know, women composers in their, you know, early career to write for these performers. And we were due to be working with Ishani Paramparnayagam on piano and Naomi Sullivan on saxophone. And we had it all set up ready to have, you know, six commission composers and these be toured at various universities and church places and everything. But that all, of course, like everything else, had to come to an end with the Pandemic. But we obviously, we hope to be able to pick up on that project if things keep going in the right direction. But again, like with the Connector Skies project, I didn't want to just stop doing things. And I felt particularly with this project, it's so much about highlighting and celebrating women's creativity, both as performers and composers, that I thought I must continue being able to sort of show this great work in some way. So I'd had over the years a lot of solo performers and various other people get in touch and want to be involved in the project in some way. You know, there's usually it's, you know, we've got one, you know, performance in residence for every like half year or so. So it's, it's impossible to be able to get so many people involved. But I thought actually that perhaps the Pandemic had an opportunity to perhaps sort of rectify some of this really. So we, we started our digital concert series with different soloists from October 2020, and they're all on the Illuminate Women's YouTube channel, so you can catch them there. We had wonderful. We had classical guitarist Eleanor Kelly again, we had Maggie Cox, who, because I just knew she was so wonderful to work with and she was also very interested in women composers and particularly for the double bass, there's not much out there repertoire wise, so it was a great opportunity for her to do that, which you'll be hearing one of the pieces from that particular concert in a bit. But the concert series has continued and we just had one on 21st April with the oboist Nicola Hands, which included quite a number of historical composers as well, such as Ruth Gipps and modern composers as well with Thea Musgrave and Rhiann Samuels. And she also did a piece by myself as well. And this has also been quite an international enterprise, which is the other thing that illuminate women's music has usually been a UK based thing because I think one of the most exciting concerts for me was with violinist Sophie Jatsuk and with pianist sorry, Barry and they are in Montessori, Montreal. And they created this beautiful program which they performed and recorded at McGill University. And you know, that had composers such as Cara Schumann, Ethel Smyth, Amy and Rebecca Clark. So all of those, again, you know, are available to Listen back to. And the latest one will be on the 19th of May, and that's with sopranoist Rosie Hegeli and she's sort of in partnership with New York women composers. I forget the exact name of it, but they did a basically a call for scores. And so there's a really exciting and diverse program coming up there as well. Wonderful. Well, let's listen to Ondas by Sonia Ray. So this is from the Illuminate Digital Concert series and we will actually hear Sonja talking, am I right? Yes. A small introduction from the composer herself. Hi, I'm Sonia Ray and I wrote Ondes, which in English means waves. And the main idea is to explore the entire instrument, the low range and the high range, in a way that you can feel different waves, all sorts of waves, waves of your mind, waves of the ocean, electric waves, waves of your body. And I left the middle part with 3 meter and free dynamics so the performer could bring out his or her own ideas of waves. And I'm really glad that Maggie is performing this piece and I hope you have a great time on her recital. Thank you so much, Maggie. Have a great time, you guys. Bye. It. And this was on this by Sonia Ray for Illuminate Digital Concert series. Wonderful. Thank you, Angela, for this wonderful interview today. Thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful to talk about both Connected Skies and Illuminate women's music. Absolutely. Well, it was lovely to have you back at Future Classic Win awards to our audience if you have, and to our guest if you have, you know, questions to ask to our guest or nomination for our program, please email presentersomensradiostation.com or tweet us @womensradiostn. A big thanks again to Angela Slater for the wonderful chat, the beautiful music played today, and above all for her wonderful program that is Illuminate Concert, the Illuminate Digital concert that you can see on our Illuminate YouTube channel. You'll be listening to Future Classic Women Awards on women's radio station live every day at 10am and 10pm London time. And if you would like to listen to it again or catch up on our previous programs, you can add to my presenters page Stefania Passamonte Future Classic Women Awards on womensradiostation.com thank you for listening. Goodbye. Sa. Sam.