Philharmonia Composers' Academy, Vol. 4

Album review

The Philharmonia Orchestra is delighted to present three new works by composers Hollie Harding, Joel Järventausta and Jocelyn Campbell, participants in the Philharmonia’s 2019/20 Composers’ Academy and the 2019/20 Royal Philharmonic Society Composers programme. The featured composers developed their works over their 10-month participation in the Composers’ Academy, benefitting from seminars and tutorials as well as contemporary instrument exploration sessions and a works-in-progress workshop with Philharmonia players and conductor Patrick Bailey.

In Hollie Harding's effervescent What was scattered the Philharmonia instrumentalists are given performance directions including "shimmering" and "uncoiling" to underpin music coloured by an underlying sense of longing and written during a particular difficult time in lockdown. Synesthete Joel Järventausta contributes an exploration of timbre and colour in his slow, ritualistic piece Pilgrim. The Philharmonia hits the club in Jocelyn Campbell's Clubland: X-Treme Euphoria, an ode to the trance and hardcore megamixes that were Campbell's gateway into composition. © NMC Recordings