Name: Aitchison, Jim: Shadows of Light II
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Aitchison, Jim: Shadows of Light II

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Arrangement: Music from the Seagram Murals for countertenor, horn and string quartet
Edition Type: score and parts
Publisher: Composers Edition
Catalogue Number: ce-ja1sol2
Pages: 160
Date Published: 16th Jun 2023

Finding a point of musical entry to the Seagram Murals was exceptionally daunting: navigating through their often-reported crushing emotional impact, decades of ideas and reactions, a kind of resident internal music already emanating from the paintings and, not least, Rothko’s stated aspiration towards the ‘simple expression of the complex thought.’

My first attempt was commissioned by Tate with support from the PRS for New Music Foundation, and Henry Tillman and Jill Bradford, for the large-scale Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern in 2008/9. A long process, aided by curators Achim Borchardt-Hume and Paul Moorhouse, and art historian Simon Shaw-Miller, resulted in a 45-minute piece for countertenor Nicholas Clapton, horn player Michael Thompson and the Kreutzer Quartet, performed to a large audience in the exhibition space.

I completely recomposed the music in 2010, and a recording was made which was placed in the Rothko Room at Tate Modern in 2012. In 2016, the music was performed again by the NewEar Ensemble, in Kansas City, USA. The recording remains available to hear on the Tate website, performed by Nicholas Clapton (countertenor), Michael Thompson (horn) and the Kreutzer Quartet. Sound courtesy of Jonathan Haskell (Astounding Sounds)

https://www.tate.org.uk/audio/shadows-light-ii-music-seagram-murals

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