Forty Years Amusicking (a performance of compositions by Richard Fay)

***** We've managed to find a few extra seats but then it really is sold out *****

Jason Taing conducts a specially assembled 20-piece orchestra of highly talented early career musicians for a retrospective programme of ‘ethno-classical’ pieces by Manchester composer Richard Fay

Time for something different? Something both local and yet unfamiliar? What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon? Compelling melodies that quickly become welcome ear-worms, unusual instrumentations and oddly danceable rhythms, and deeply personal melds of 'folk' and classical musical influences .... these "ethno-classical" pieces by local composer Richard Fay will take you on a journey through his experiences of people, places, moments, and moods.

Although written over four decades, only recently has Richard’s music become more widely known through a series of albums and films produced by Sam Gee. This corpus of works captures Richard’s search for an appropriate voice for his music, one straddling and melding the worlds of Western classical and ‘folk’ musics in order to (re)present in music his experiences of people, places, moments, and moods:

“I remember the birth of each piece: particular places, special people, isolated memories each paused, floating on waves of experience, musical regeneration of the transitory. Fixing memories musically is a habit of mine. I work from occasions, trying to note/notate the experience before it's swamped by the expanse of living. Once a tune is established, and has been named and set down, it’s as if it’d always been, something pre-existent.”