OSCAR BETTISON (SITE) Biography Oscar Bettison's work demonstrates a willingness (boa vontade) to work within and outside

de the confines of concert music. Often, he likes to work with what he calls Cinderella instruments (i.e. instruments that, for one reason or another are off-the-beaten-path), either by making percussion instruments, by re-imagining unconventional instruments and by writing for less-than-standard ensembles such as six pianos or four drum kits. Oscar Bettison was born in the UK. After studying in London with Simon Bainbridge at the Royal College of Music and with Robert Saxton at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama he went to the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague where he studied with Louis Andriessen and Martijn Padding. He hols a PhD from Princeton University where his advisor was Steve Mackey. He was a fellow at the Tanglewood (2001) and Aspen (2007) music festivals.

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What drives your work, what are you passions? I'm pretty obsessed with machines. Small musical machines, like cannons and sets of notes that fold back onto themselves, and larger machines that drive a whole piece only to be subsumed by it

What is your musical philosophy? I think that anything is possible and that one should have open ears and an open mind. I know that sounds basic and naive, but that's really what I think. It's good to be childlike. Every composer that I admire ultimately thinks of him or herself as a student with an inquiring mind. That's what I try to do. I love to go to concerts and hear something completely new. Of course that almost never happens, but hope springs eternal! Lastly, I'd say that to me there's no such thing as the music that you should write. Of course that's not to say that anything goes, all composers should have a highly developed filter, but that there's no abstract should and shouldn't.

Who has been the greatest influence on your musical style to date and why? Firstly my teachers. As I'm about to start teaching at Peabody I've recently been thinking about my teachers and the influence that they've had on me. I've been incredibly lucky not only to have had great teachers, but to have had the right teacher at the right time. Simon Bainbridge and Robert Saxton were great for me and really helped to solidify my technique. With Louis Andrissen and Martijn Padding we would discuss aesthetics which was a totally different approach. Finally, as I got into my whole cinderella instruments thing, Steve Mackey was the perfect guy to go to as he has such a unique approach to sound. Other composers that I love include Feldman, (especially "Coptic Light") Stockhausen, (particularly "Trans" and "Inori") and I've come to realise quite recently what a truly amazing composer Luciano Berio was. I used to listen to a lot of Berio a long time ago, and I've come back round to him. I also really admire Vivier's music -now there was a really original compositional voice. Out of the younger generation, Peter Adriaansz is a really fantastic composer and a good friend too. I got the chance to work with Luca Francesconi last year and he's another very interesting composer -

what an amazing mind! One of the last pieces that I heard which blew me away was Olga Neuwirth's opera "Lost Highway", I've never heard anything quite like it.

Which work are you most proud of and why? "O Death". It's a seventy minute piece that I wrote for the amazing Dutch group Ensemble Klang. The piece was a watershed for me, it summed up most of the compositional ideas that I'd been working on for a while. One of the key things is that the piece is that each of the players, in addition to playing their regular instrument, has to double on a whole variety of other instruments. So the saxes play recorders, the trombone plays melodica, the guitar plays banjo, the piano and percussion play harmonicas and almost everyone plays jew's harps, as well as there being a prominent electronic component. This was the result of nearly eighteen months of intense work with the group. It really was written for the individual members of the group rather than an anonymous group of musicians. I think that really affected the piece and that in turn affects the way that they play it. They've just recorded it and the CD should be out in the next couple of months, which I'm enormously excited about.

WORKS O Death (textinho da paritura)

Oscar Bettison (2005-7)

O Death that was written for Ensemble Klang and premiered in New York in March

2007. The idea for O Death started when I heard the folk-song of the same name. In it, a

young person pleads with the character of death not to take them away so soon. I was

immediately struck with the parallels between this and parts of the Requiem Mass and so

I started to think about grafting on popular music elements (particularly from blues and

other American folk music) onto a kind-of Requiem structure. Thus I call O Death a

Requiem-Masque. The piece is scored for 2 saxophones, trombone, percussion, piano,

electric guitar and electronic samples. Apart from playing their regular instruments, each

of the players also have to play recorders, jews harps, harmonicas, as well as banjo and

melodica.

O Death is around 70 minutes long and is in seven movements:

I) Chorus I The two chorus movements are the only movements not to feature the entire

ensemble. Chorus I is scored for 2 tenor saxophones, trombone, slide-guitar and taped

samples.

II) Bone Chapel is a memento mori. The title comes from the Bone Chapel in Evora,

Portugal an 18

chapel is an inscription that reads: We bones that are here, for your bones we wait.

th

Century chapel literally made from human bones. Above the door of the

Bone Chapel is based on the idea of a one-note solo, a common feature of many blues

solos.

III) Take Leave of Carnal Vain Delight is a kind of banjo-lead scherzo-macabre. The title

comes from a 17

young woman:

th

century English broadside, in which the character of death speaks to a

No longer may you glory in your pride;

I'm come to summon you away this night."

"...throw those costly robes aside,

Take leave of carnal vain delight,

IV) O Death is loosely based on the American folk-song of the same name. If the third

movement was an invitation from the figure of death, this movement is the young

persons response, a few centuries later and several thousand miles away:

O, Death!

Youre closin my eyes so I cant see.

How youre treating me!

Well, youre hurtin my body,

You make me cold,

You run my life

Right out of my soul.

O Death! O Death!

Won't you spare me over 'til another year?"

V) Chorus II is scored for 2 tenor saxophones, trombone, slide-guitar and flower pots.

VI) I Believe Im Sinking Down deals with memory. Alternating furious and serene

sections coalesce with the use of a dictaphone playing back the previous loud sections

material during the moments of repose. Gradually both types of material are filtered out

by a kind of half-remembered clockwork. The title comes from Robert Johnsons

Crossroad Blues:

"You can run, tell my friend, poor Willie Brown,

Lord, that I'm standing at the crossroad, babe,

I believe I'm sinking down."

VII) Lights in Ashes begins with Jews Harps. This section gives way to a different type

of clockwork a slowly moving resonant unison. The movement owes its title to Sir

Thomas Browne: "Since our longest Sunne sets at right descensions, and makes but

winter arches, and therefore it cannot be long before we lay down in darknesse, and have

our lights in ashes."

B&E (WITH AGGRAVATED ASSAULT) (2006)

Composer's Notes There used to be a TV advert in the UK for a product called Ronseal Wood Sealant. The advert said the following: Ronseal Wood Sealant. It seals wood. Ronsealdoes exactly what it says on the can. My piece is called Breaking & Entering (with aggravated assault). It does exactly what it says on the can. Oscar Bettison

THE AFFLICTED GIRL (2010)

Composer's Notes And there was 'the afflicted girl white faced and expressionless' who sat for many years close to the Horse-Shoe of Tottenham Court Road, oblivious of time and inured to suffering though all the noise and tumult.' Peter Ackroyd, London A Biography I was very struck by this passage in Peter Ackroyds wonderful biography of London. Through the course of writing this pi ece I returned to it again and again. At first I couldnt think why I found this image so affecting, but I came to realize that it was due to the idea of listening. I was trying to imagine what would draw someone to sit at one of the noisiest crossroads of one of the biggest cities on earth. Then it occurred to me that perhaps this girl was hearing something, some strange music cloaked inside the sonic fabric of the citys roar. I tried to imagine what this music might be and then to write it. This piece is the result of that. In short, I think of The Afflicted Girl as the opposite of a pastoral.

Oscar Bettison