The Cristal Bachet. Photo © Dylan Crismani

Fresh new music emerges from lockdown

Soundstream’s recent concert EMERGE emphasised new ideas, new methods, and new ways of interacting with music

By the start of 2020, I was feeling broken on the wheel. I had finished my studies in music composition, but 2019 had been coloured by one rejection letter after another, including one stating that my theory for achieving just intonation in the context of an orchestra was so wildly unrealistic it defied credibility.

So when pianist Gabriella Smart contacted me to commission a composition, there was an almost divine timing to it. There was only one problem: the piece was to be for piano in...