Composer in residence is set on creating great music with something of a flourish

Sep 14 2007 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

TONIGHT’S concert at the Philharmonic Hall is titled Opening Flourish and it will certainly be one for the Liverpool-born composer Kenneth Hesketh: the concert marks the start of his two-year residency with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as “Composer in the House”.

It is a well-deserved honour for Hesketh, 39, one of Britain’s most in-demand composers, writing commissions for British orchestras and ensembles, as well as those in Europe and North America.

He is also recognised as one of our more accessible composers.

Tonight’s concert opening the Phil season will feature a new symphony by another Liverpool-born composer, John McCabe, as well as Hesketh’s new A Rhyme for the Season.

The 4½-minute work is officially described as a concert opener. “I was asked to write something in a flourishful manner,” he explains.

“So I wanted something that would have immediate appeal but also something that could be put together in a simple manner and built on simple building blocks.”

His idea – and the one which gives it its name – was to use musical rhymes. “In literature, you have rhyming couplets and internal rhymes and in music you can have an orchestral phrase going up which would rhyme with another phrase going up or going down, similar repetitions that you get with a rhyme in English or any other language.”

He will be spending a lot of time in Liverpool during his two-year residency. “There will be a fair amount of work because I am not just working with the orchestras but with smaller groups like the 10/10 contemporary music group, chamber groups and writing a fair amount for all the choirs in the building.”

Over the two years, he expects to write at least 14 new pieces of music.

All his work is done on commissions, and he does not worry about how it will be received by those who commission it. Those who do commission, he points out, normally have an idea of the sort of music a composer writes and whether it will suit them.

He also likes briefs that set limits for him. “As long as someone wants a four-minute piece, you know they don’t want something that runs for 30 minutes. If there is a central point to a commission, it can be useful, a place to start and it breaks down the tyranny of the blank manuscript page.”

Hesketh was composing at an early age – “the first pieces date from the age of nine” – where he had great support from his family. There was also a piano which was his, he says, as he was the only one who could open the lid and play the thing.

He had the instrument for many years before finally selling it to pay for his air fare to Michigan, where he did a masters degree at the state’s university. “It also helped pay some of the moving costs.”

Before then, he had been writing music – his first piece for orchestra at the age of 13 and a commission from the Royal Liverpool Phil at 19. He was also a chorister at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, where his musical interests were fired up even more.

“I suppose composing began as a hobby. People often have a real passion as a child and you start to fixate on something. For most people, other things take over but for me it didn't – music remained that passionate hobby which became an all-consuming way of being.”

There are more composers in Britain than most people can imagine, he reports. He teaches at the Royal College of Music and there are at least four other London colleges, “all pumping out fine composers”. Not all of them go on to make a living from it and he does allow that full-time composers, of which he considers himself one, are still quite rare.

He certainly loves the work – although admits he can sometimes take on too much. “Physically, one feels it more these days and I will have to take things a little easier.”

He was hospitalised last year with something he describes as “fairly easy to treat but I will have to watch myself”. He adds with a grin: “But I am still up to making trouble when I start hanging round the Phil”.

Certainly he does not worry about deadlines. “I might when beginning a piece but as soon as I have ideas on paper, the piece can almost write itself.” But he works on only one composition at a time, aware of the dangers of cross-fertilisation of musical ideas. And he does keep a notebook.

“When a piece or a concept occurs to me, I write it down as much as I can in words and file it away. If the right opportunity comes along, I might be able to use one. I guess I have around four or five concepts on the back boiler at the moment.” As for his composition style being accessible, he says that may have changed but he still retains his links to choral music – he is writing a new Christmas carol for the Phil – and brass bands as well as more interesting serious music. “Composers today have to be adaptable.”

When we spoke, he had already discussed his new work with conductor Vasily Petrenko: “We agreed on almost everything. I hope it will be straightforward for him, although it will be technically challenging for the performers. I hope it will be something immediate and colourful.”

THE Opening Flourish concert is at the Philharmonic Hall tonight, 7.30pm.