Nonet (2020) Perusal score

Commissioned by the South Downs National Park Authority for its tenth anniversary (2021)

Flute, Clarinet, Horn, Trumpet, Piano, 2 Violins, Viola, Cello

Recorded by the New Music Players at St John’s Smith Square on 18.3.2021

Duration 16’

Nonet (2020-21) is a three-movement work for ensemble. It was written for the New Music Players. It was commissioned by the South Downs National Park Authority as a score to accompany a film to mark its tenth anniversary in June 2021. It was specially recorded by the New Music Players in a socially distanced recording session in London in March 2021. The melodies and rhythms of the music directly reflect my experience of walking the South Downs Way.

Nonet followed a project for the Brighton Festival (Cuckmere: A Portrait), which led to a score for a contemporary silent film and for an interactive soundwalk App.

In the context of lockdown it was considered valuable to follow this model: the music of Nonet also became part of an (outdoors) soundwalk that would enable walkers to be ‘immersed’ in music while experiencing the landscape of the South Downs in the vicinity of the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, and Ditchling Beacon. The soundwalk was available via the Echoes interactive soundwalks app during May 2021 (as part of the Brighton Festival). The three separate movements of Nonet were designed to be heard in sequence, each triggered at specific geo-located points on a five mile circular walk, beginning with an ascent up 'Burnhouse Bostall’, a walk along the ridge of the South Downs Way, and arrival at the Ditchling Beacon Trig point.

Movement one is marked con moto. The sense of flow and momentum is designed to match the walker’s movement through the landscape and provide musical affinities with features such as light and shadow, ascent and the gradual sense of perspectives unfurling.

Movement two is marked tranquil. It has a cooler, more detached feeling and a slower pace. It is more contemplative. It has too has a sense of perspectives but with a more reflective quality.

Movement three is marked flowing. It recovers the qualities of movement one but with more sparkling textures suggesting descent, synthesis and momentum towards return.

BBC Sussex Interview with Ed Hughes on this project