Fifteen new music premieres
Music Fellow Francis Knights (harpsichord) and the Dulcis Venti recorder quartet gave fifteen world premieres on 4 June.
Many of these new pieces originated in a recent call for scores from the established composers’ organization Colchester New Music, and most of their composers were present to hear the first performances at the Headgate Theatre Colchester.
Francis Knights said: ‘When Essex composer Stephen Watkins of Dulcis Venti first suggested this project to me, I thought that there would already exist plenty of music for this combination – after all, there are thousands of contemporary works for recorders and for harpsichord separately. We found almost nothing, so have been creating a new genre, and enjoying the variety of composers’ responses to this interesting combination of instruments.’
One of the new works performed was ‘Albor’ by Ivan Moody from Lisbon, whose opera ‘Fables de La Fontaine’ was premiered by Fitzwilliam Chamber Opera in 2011.
Francis Knights is Director of Studies in Music at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and trained as a harpsichordist under Robert Woolley and David Roblou.
