Listen – Bill Carslake

Photograph © Bill Carslake (beach, Knoydart Peninsula)

Short extracts from Bill Carslake’s compositions

The Singing Glacier

A collaboration with poet Helen Mort and film-maker Richard Jones, inspired by climbing in East Greenland in 2016. Read more and listen in full.

Violin, Flora Curzon; voice, Helen Mort; piano, Bill Carslake.

Icicle

Written for the crowdfunding campaign for The Singing Glacier. For violin, viola and glockenspiel (keyed or normal). Read more and listen in full.

Violin, Helen Kruger; viola, Virginia Slater; keyed glockenspiel, Bill Carslake.

Disco Ball – Mountain Hare

A Finzi Scholarship project. Inspired by solo camping trips researching mountain hares in the Cairngorms, Scotland in 2018/19. For full orchestra minus trombones and tuba. Listen here to the premiere by Farnborough Symphony Orchestra, and read more about the project here. Bill has also written an extended essay about the travel and composition process, called Disco Ball – Mountain Hare: composing in the Cairngorms.

Extract from Timidus, movement ii, piano score, sampled sounds.

Particle 1, 2 & 3

Inspired by the viscosity of air and how animals interact with it. For violin, cello, piano and clarinet. Also available for solo violin and orchestra. Read more and listen in full.

Extract from Particle 2 performed by Alisios Camerata of Zagreb at Banff Centre, Canada, 2017.

The Duel of the White-necked Ravens

A setting of a poem by Bill, inspired by watching White-necked ravens fighting mid-air near the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in 2014. For SATB choir, soprano solo and solo piano. Read more.

Piano, Sarah Latto; soprano, Catherine Shaw.

As Dewe: Deus Factus Est

A setting of the Middle English lyric, I Singe of a Mayden, focusing on the use of dew as a simile in the text. Written for orchestra and children’s choirs. Arranged for SATB choir and organ and published by Shorter House.

Organist, Timothy Wakerell; London Charity Orchestra.

Available to purchase from Shorterhouse.com

London Life

Originally sound-tracks for five short films produced in 2013 by Sands Films, Rotherhithe. Now a concert suite for violin, clarinet, guitar, double bass, harpsichord and timpani – with options for different instrumentation. Read more and listen in full.

Fourth piece from a suite of five. Violin, Max Bailey; clarinet, Ewan Bleach; double bass, Dave O’Brien; production (incl. sampled timpani and harpsichord) Anthony Weeden.

Wind 1

First in a new series of pieces for bassoon and violin inspired by the wind. In progress.

Bassoon and violin. Sampled sounds.

The Lockdown Lyrics – Songs for Strange Times

Nine poems written during the first nine days of ‘lockdown’ in the UK . Three lines in each poem, nine syllables in each line, creating ‘999’ for the state of emergency and constraint. Set to music for two voices or one voice with looper pedal. Read more

Audio extract coming soon

Listen to full recordings of Bill’s compositions on the Composing pages and on Soundcloud.