Sleeve Notes

LEADER - VERITY BUTLER
CONDUCTOR - CHARLES HINE

Eric Hughes
Eric Hughes was born in Liverpool in 1924, and was bought up and educated in North Wales. He served with the Royal Air Force in Burma during the war and after demobilisation read a degree in Electronic Engineering at the University College of North Wales in Bangor and pursued the profession of research scientist. He studied harmony and composition at the Hendon Music Centre, as an evening pursuit, with Alan Bush, Franz Reizenstein and Geoffrey Winter and has composed for a wide variety of ensembles, from duet to full orchestra.

Celebration was written in the Queen's Silver Jubilee Year 1977 for John Denman's Clarinet choir at the University of Idaho and was first performed by them in November of that year. In 1982 it came to the notice of John MacKenzie, administrator of the BCE, who performed it on several occasions with the Darlington Clarinet Ensemble and included it in the programme for the BCEs' first tour to Finland. The piece has no specific programme, but is meant as a light hearted "celebration" as befits its title; it has a more serious middle section which makes oblique references to the thematic content of the exuberant outer sections.

Guy Woolfenden
With more than 150 scores for The Royal Shakespeare Company and an impressive list of credits with major European theatre companies, Guy Woolfenden's theatre music is highly regarded throughout the world. He has collaborated with some of the world's finest director's, designers and choreographers in many award-winning productions.

In collaboration with choreographer Andre Provovsky, he has arranged the music for four full length ballets, which he has subsequently conducted in productions with The Australian Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Tokyo and The Kirov Ballet in St Petersburg. Guy Woolfenden is Chairman of the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles and, with the enormous success of his wind music, is enjoying new opportunities to conduct wind orchestras all over the world. Guy Woolfenden is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Gordian Knots - In 1995 the musical world celebrated the tercentenary of the death of Henry Purcell, and the BBC broadcast every note he ever wrote. That same year I was researching the songs Purcell composed for The Wive's Excuse, a rarely performed play by Thomas Southerne which the Royal Shakespeare Company was reviving, and I was once again bowled over by the wit, exuberance and pathos of Purcell's theatre music. There is, of course, no original clarinet music by Henry Purcell, and the idea came to me that I could celebrate his tercentenary, give clarinetists a treat, and fulfil a commission by the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain. The music is inspired by, and draws on the music that Purcell wrote for The Gordian Knot Unty'd (1691).

The last movement is a Jig in which Purcell ingeniously incorporates the tune Lilliburlero as a ground bass.

Gordian Knots was first performed by the British Clarinet Ensemble in Finland in July 1995, under the direction of Charles Hine. The piece is dedicated to my brother Peter, who sadly died during its composition.

Michael Ball
Born in Manchester, now living in Dublin, Michael Ball has contributed substantially to the Repertoire for wind in recent years, including the virtuosic Omaggio of 1987 for Timothy Reynish and the RNCM Wind Orchestra and the Saxophone Concerto, written in 1994 for Rob Buckland. Michael has also written a good deal for brass, with test pieces for the British Open, British National and European Brass Band Championships, most recently his Whitsun Wakes of 1997.

Concertino was commissioned by the Berkshire Young Musicians' Trust for their own Clarinet Choir and their conductor, Charles Henwood. The piece was written during the summer of 1997 and first heard in workshop performance during the 1998 Conference of British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.

Paul Hart
Paul Hart is one of the brightest young talents in music today. He is a first class instrumentalist and has performed with the John Dankworth Band and Sky. He is now known for his commercial music for TV and Radio, notably the Classic FM signature tune. Commissions have included works for John Williams, the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and for wind band Cartoon, Journey and Celebration, Circus Ring and Carnaby Street.

Eric's Czardas was commissioned by the British Clarinet Ensemble for the 1996 Annual Conference of the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles held at Warwick University. The piece typifies the composers' ebullient style, masterfully written for the combination and exploiting its potential and virtuosity to the full. In all it is a piece full of verve and good humour.

Alan Bullard
Alan Bullard was born in London in 1947 and studied at the Royal College of Music with Herbert Howell and Antony Hopkins, and at Nottingham University with Arnold Whittall. Alan now combines his work as Head of Composition at the Colchester Institute Centre for Music and the Performance Arts with a busy career as a composer of music for a variety of performers and occasions. His recent instrumental commissions vary from works for professional performance to elementary educational works for the Associated Board and Oxford University Press. His many choral compositions include works for choir and orchestra, male voice, youth and church choirs. He has written a number of works for wind ensembles of various types and sizes.

Cyclic Harmony was written for the British Clarinet Ensemble and was first performed in July 1998 at the EuroCass Festival in Krakow, Poland. Based on a simple but logical melodic and harmonic drive with rich sonorous chords it makes full use of the wide range of the ensemble.

Gordon Lewin
Gordon Lewin clarinettist, saxophonist and composer has spent most of his career in the recording studios, playing for films, radio and TV. He now spends his time composing and arranging, and has over sixty published works for woodwind.

The Grand Old of Duke of York was written in 1995 at the request of the British Clarinet Ensemble for their tour of Finland, premiered in Helsinki, broadcast later that year from the BASBWE Conference at the Royal Northern College of Music, and later performed at the first EuroCass Conference in Budapest, In this arrangement the traditional British tune is subjected to a variety of tongue-in-cheek military allusions.

Charles Hine
Charles Hine studied clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music where he received numerous awards and has since been honoured with an ARAM. Since the early 1970s Charles has followed a career as a clarinettist, holding principal positions with some of Britain’s leading orchestras as well as giving solo recitals and concerto performances. He is a founder member of the Vega Wind Quintet, one of the countries leading chamber ensembles. He also has written a large number of compositions, including works for wind. Charles is deeply involved with the promotion of wind music especially its educational aspect being Chairman of the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles Education Trust and a Council member of the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain. He is currently Head of Woodwind Studies and Performance Studies at the Colchester Institute Centre for Music and the Performance Arts where he directs the Wind Orchestra. He also teaches at the Royal College of Music Junior Department where he conducts the Wind Orchestra and Clarinet Choir. Much in demand as an adjudicator he has chaired the assessment panels for the National Concert Band Festival, the National Festival of Music for Youth, as well as leading seminars and giving clinics and master classes on all aspects of clarinet, wind ensemble and band playing.

The British Clarinet Ensemble, sponsored by the Clarinet & Saxophone Society of Great Britain, was formed in 1995. The full range of the clarinet family, Eb clarinet. Bb Clarinet, Alto Clarinet, Basset Horn, Bass Clarinet and Contrabass Clarinet, is heard in the ensemble. Since its debut the BCE has commissioned new works from British composers as well as performing existing repertoire.

In July 1995 the BCE toured Finland as guests of the Finnish Clarinet Society and concerts included a collaboration with the Finnish Clarinet Ensemble to give the first performance of "Vento" by Jukka Tiensuu. Since then the ensemble has given regular performances both in the UK and abroad performing at Annual Conferences of the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles, the British Clarinet Choir Convention, the British Clarinet Congress, the European Clarinet & Saxophone Congress and the 1999 ICA International Clarinetfest. Gervase de Peyer, clarinet, Kyle Horch, saxophone, the Northern Saxophone Quartet and the Chinook Clarinet Quartet have appeared as soloists with the BCE.

"Gordian Knots" is dedicated to the memory of Graham Brooker,
a member of the BCE, who died in January 1999