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4’30’’
for alto saxophone
written for Harry Fausing Smith
Much of my recent music has attempted to abandon structures which imply a sense of linear narrative, often through the use of simple musical ideas such as repetition and stasis, alongside questioning more elusive notions such as memory, process and climax.
I have never been anywhere so long is loosely based on Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s 1961 film L’année dernière à Marienbad. Throughout the piece, a musical figure is constantly being misremembered and/or reimagined as its various qualities are individually developed through their own unique processes, allowing certain aspects of the music rush to a climax or gently conclude at their own pace, whilst others remain more constant and temporally rooted in one place.
I have never been anywhere so long formed the basis of Hand Film by Rowland Hill, a commission from Manchester After Hours and the Museum of Science and Industry, created in collaboration with the composer. The video maps a series of hand gestures used by workers in a nearby mill to operate its machinery.