Joe Bates
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News

Straight Line Through A Landscape

6/6/2022

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I first thought of writing for siphoned demijohns in December 2021. I was playing with a pair I had bought at a charity shop, testing their pitch to see if they’d work for a Filthy Lucre concert I was producing. I sped up the process by siphoning the water, rather than pouring it. I loved the sound, and my obsession was sparked.
This spring, the LSO commissioned me to write a full work for these: you can see it live next Wednesday at LSO St. Luke’s. Tickets are here. It’s called Straight Line Through A Landscape, and I’m pretty proud of it! 
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When I started work, I didn’t quite realise how complicated it would be to write for four of these siphoned demijohns. I thought I’d walk through the multi-step process that was required to begin writing this piece.

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Sparrow Premiere

5/2/2022

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On Saturday, Sparrow received its world premiere at Kings Place. It was a joy to hear it played so sensitively by Marianne Schofield, whose astonishing accuracy with its rather tricky notes was matched by a complete command of pacing and drama. A massive thank you to Riot Ensemble, who commissioned and presented the piece. If you want to hear more harmonics and microtones, I have a premiere of a commission from the LSO at LSO St. Luke's on June 15th!
Picture
Photograph by Sam Walton

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Upcoming Premiere!

3/24/2022

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I'm delighted be part of an amazing day of music at Kings Place on April 30th! It's three concerts curated by The Riot Ensemble; I'll be in the first. As always with The Riot Ensemble, it's an enormously varied cavalcade of sounds. My piece, Sparrow, is a double bass piece that uses this large instrument to evoke a tiny bird. It's delicate and playful, but also serious. You can book for the event here.

My piece is all about looking out a window at the world outside. It will be presented alongside two pieces about staring into the digital world. Jagoda Szmytka's Sky-Me, Type Me is wild depiction of Skype call, which is written for four musicians with megaphones. Alex Hall's SPIN is a slice of digital gothic demotivation, channelling Peleton pessimism. 

If I were you though, I'd stay for the whole day. The Riot Ensemble have brought in 
L'Arsenale Ensemble and Hub New Music as partners in two further concerts which promise an interesting array of new sounds. I'll be particularly excited to hear new pieces by Aaron Holloway-Nahum and Nina C Young.
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The Hazelnut – new record release

7/6/2021

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My piece for choir, The Hazelnut, is out now on Spotify! This is thanks to the amazing team at the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain (NYCGB) who I worked with throughout the pandemic. They linked up with Choir & Organ magazine to publish the score and release this recording.

I thought I’d write a little about my approach to the harmony in this piece.

​I’m obsessed with tuning and microtones; I love exploring the nooks and crannies of quartertones and Just Intonation. When using these tunings, I often make use of symmetry. My most common trick is to use chords that cut a perfect fourth exactly in half, with a third just a little smaller than a minor third.

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Imposter Syndrome vs the DIY Spirit

5/28/2021

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I thought I’d write a short post about the most avoidable mistake I’ve made in my “career” in music so far.

When I finished my EP, Flim Flam, I refused to promote it properly. I tweeted a little, put it on Facebook and Instagram, and left it there. I knew this wasn’t how to do things; I’ve sat in enough publicity to workshops to know the drill.

The problem was, I couldn’t believe the EP was any good. I told friends, “Oh, I’m not going to promote this properly; it’s just a first try, and I’m not sure it’s something I should push.” My insecurity came, in part, from my classical training.

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Interview and score with Choir & Organ Magazine

5/21/2021

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Picture
You can now read my interview with Choir & Organ magazine online! It was a fun interview to do, and touches on a lot of aspects of my music making. 

More importantly, you can also download the score of my piece The Hazelnut for free from their website.

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How to go outside - music for a play

4/12/2021

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I’ve enjoyed writing music for how to go outside, a play written and performed by Kay Dent and directed by Jesse Haughton-Shaw. It’s a wonderful piece of writing. It takes the form of a guided meditation – a common feature of our digital landscape that, in Kay’s work, is warped into an exploration of loss. It’s uncomfortably intimate: the meditation guide is somebody who we’ve learnt to give our attention to but also to ignore. I’ve written a lot of music for this play – upwards of twenty minutes! You can hear a demo of part of that below, or even better, in context this week. The show is on YouTube live, Wednesday to Saturday at 8pm, and lasts 50 minutes. Tickets are available here. 
Joseph Bates · How To Go Outside OST Teaser – Earthing
​As a composer, this piece presented interesting compositional challenges, which I thought I’d talk about here.

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NMC Record Release

1/15/2021

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Today marks the first time I’ve had a piece released by a real record label! Now Is A Long Time has been beautifully recorded by the Fellowship of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain alongside three gorgeous works by Amy Bryce, Nathan James Dearden and Lisa Robertson. It’s released via a superb label, NMC. You can hear it on Spotify or, for those of you that are good enough to pay for music, download it from their online store.
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NMC has also put out a nice series of video interviews with the four of us, which give a flavour of the work:

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Into the weeds of Two Animals

11/13/2020

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It’s been quite something to see Psappha’s recording of my piece for accordion, Two Animals. Frankly, it brought me back around to a piece that I was anxious about. Miloš Milojević’s superb recording brings out everything I had hoped the piece might have, but that I was secretly afraid it lacked.
The piece had a troubled genesis. I had two different ideas: I wanted to have two separate rhythmic cycles, one seven minims long, one three minims long, which then create a 21-minim long superstructure. And I wanted the accordionist to sing.
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These ideas were exciting but created traps. 

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Sparrow Video Release

10/23/2020

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Today, a new video of my work for double bass, Sparrow, is out with the Riot Ensemble. I’m really pleased with the result, and I wanted to write a little about the work.

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All photographs by Ilme Vysniauskaite
  • News
  • Music
    • Full List
    • Large Ensemble >
      • Muted The Night
      • London's Other Bones
    • Small Ensemble >
      • Straight Line Through A Landscape
      • Two Animals
      • Nocturne
      • Lain Lines
      • Us Alone
      • A Noise So Loud
    • Solo >
      • Suite for Guitar
      • Sparrow
      • Street Through A Window
      • Two Animals
      • Flim Flam
      • Slow Hills
    • Vocal >
      • The Hazelnut
      • Some Parts of Us
      • Now Is A Long Time
      • Cataracts
      • Ceasing
      • Hildegard
  • Recordings
  • About
  • Teaching
  • Filthy Lucre
  • Upcoming Dates