Highlights Recent (and not so recent!)
Home » Highlights Recent (and not so recent!)April 2023 I fear I have neglected this page of late though highlights have been many. Shipley Concerto for violin and strings has been premiered and performed a second time, as have Concertino for Oboe and Strings and Seaford Snapshots for horn and strings, all under my baton. Seaford Sketches for harp and strings has been premiered and I have just finished composing A Celebratory Overture for the BBC Concert Orchestra's opening concert of the English Music Festival in Oxfordshire this May. I was Composer in Residence at last year's three-day International Composers Festival at the De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, where the symphony orchestra under conductor John Andrews performed Flourish for a Festival, Engineerium, Autumn Love and the premiere of Hastings Lifeboat March, and Two Waltzes for Flute and Harp were included in the chamber music concert. Finally, last year the Corelli Ensemble included substantial works of mine including two premieres in five concerts and the Bexhill Sinfonietta under Kenneth Roberts included Ecclesbourne Glen in the opening concert of the 2022 Bexhill Festival of Music.
June 7th 2021 Premiere recording of Concerto Romantico for harp and string orchestra in Tel Aviv. Rachel Talitman, harp, with the Israel Strings Ensemble, cond. Doron Salomon.
September 22nd 2018 Premiere of Engineerium, commissioned for the water-themed Sussex Symphony Orchestra 25th anniversary concert with funding from Southern Water, All Saints Church, Hove, SSO cond. Christopher Braime.
September 21st 2018 Premiere of the specially commissioned Flourish for a Festival and performance of Morning Hedgerows from English Country Pictures in the 4th International Composers Festival, The Opus, Hastings, ICF Orchestra cond. John Andrews, who also performed King's Royal TV Theme in the Film, TV and Gaming Concert, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, Sep 22nd.
March 22nd 2018 Release of the first five in an ongoing series of books of music for lever harp, Goodmusic Publishing.
January 19th 2018 Premiere recording of Ecclesbourne Glen and string orchestra version of Pavane, Manchester Sinfonia cond. Lewis, for "British Serenade 2", Heritage Records.
April 2nd 2017 Premiere of Seaside Concerto for Mighty Wurlitzer and Orchestra, Worthing Assembly Hall, Richard Hills, Wurlitzer, Worthing Symphony Orchestra cond. John Gibbons.
September 2016 Premiere recording of Threnody for Violin: The Most Famous Prince of Blessed Memory, Rupert Marshall-Luck for double CD "Richard III" - music in honour of Richard III on EM Records.
May 27th 2016 Premiere of An Optimistic Overture, dedicated to Em Marshall-Luck, Founder-Director of the English Music Festival in celebration of the 10th anniversary festival. English Music Festival, Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester-on-Thames, BBC Concert Orchestra cond. Martin Yates. Recorded for broadcast on Radio 3 in July.
May 4th 2016 Premiere of Brighton Beach Overture, Brighton College Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sandy Chenery, St. Mary's Church, Kemp Town, Brighton.
March 23rd 2016 Premiere recording of Fanfare for King Richard III, Royal Ballet Sinfonia brass and percussion cond. Gavin Sutherland, Heritage Records "British Celebration 2".
February 25th 2016 London premiere of Threnody for Violin: The Most Famous Prince of Blessed Memory, Temple Church, Rupert Marshall-Luck, violin, a repeat of the EMF Middleham Richard III concert of September 2015. (See below.)
January 7th 2016 Premiere recording of Norfolk Suite, BBC Concert orchestra strings cond. Gavin Sutherland, EM Records "Here Comes Beauty" double CD of new British music.
September 12th 2015 Premiere of Threnody for Violin: The Most Famous Prince of Blessed Memory, commissioned by the English Music Festival for a concert in honour of Richard III, Yorkshire Autumn Festival, Rupert Marshall-Luck, violin, Church of St.Mary and St. Alkelda, (Richard III's Collegiate Church,) Middleham, Yorkshire. Organ version of Fanfare for King Richard III performed by Duncan Honeybourne at the same venue earlier in the day.
May 16th 2015 Premiere recording of On Pevensey Levels, Chris Shrimpton, harmonica and the Chamber Ensemble of London dir. by Peter Fisher for 'British Serenade', Heritage Records.
May 3rd 2015 Premiere of string orchestra version of On Pevensey Levels, Bruce Martin, flute, strings dir. Andrew Bernardi, Shipley Arts Festival, Shipley Parish Church, Sussex. (Two further performances in varying orchestrations in the 2015 Shipley Arts Festival.)
March 26th 2015 Premieres of Fanfare for King Richard III and Lament for a King in "Most Famous Prince of Blessed Memory", a celebration of the life of Richard III at York Guildhall to coincide with his reburial in Leicester. Brass ensemble cond. Paul Lewis and solo flugelhorn respectively.
March 14th 2015 Premiere of On Pevensey Levels, final day of Waterweek 2015, a celebration of Pevensey Levels by naturalists, geologists, archaeologists, scholars, artists, dancers and musicians, Herstmonceux Castle, Sussex. Joanna and Martin Lawrence, violin and French horn, PL piano.
May 1st 2014 Premiere of Salute the Silents! - a celebration of silent movies. Montgomery Blair Symphonic Orchestra, AFI Silver Theatre, Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.A., conducted by the composer, as the finale of an all P.L. concert. This was the culmination of a week as Composer-in-Residence at Montgomery Blair High School at the invitation of inspirational Instrumental Music Director Michelle Roberts, who commissioned the new work with the generous assistance of the Wolf Trap Grants for High School Performing Arts Teachers. Other events: "Memoirs of a Media Composer", an illustrated talk and Q & A and a cabaret set accompanying the composer's vocalist wife Sharon Elizabeth in concert with the school jazz bands.
November 2013 Premiere of The Sunken Ballroom, inspired by the derelict West Pier, Hove. A Sussex Symphony Orchestra twentieth anniversary commission, Arundel Cathedral, conductor Mark Andrew James.
July 29th 2013 Premiere release of Lewis's full orchestral score for the famous 1972 ITV 24-part adventure series Arthur of the Britons, together with Elmer Bernstein's Title Theme, orchestrated by Lewis. Original soundtrack recording: Belgian Studio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Lewis, Silva Screen SILCD1422.
June 16th 2013 Shipley Arts Festival,The Capitol, Horsham, Sussex: English Suite, the Bernardi Chamber Ensemble, directed by Andrew Bernardi. Paul Lewis is always delighted to be represented in this festival which regularly celebrates Sussex composers.
June 6th/7th 2013 Recording Legends of Rotorua for story-teller, soprano, flute, harp, string quartet and improvised taonga puoro (native Maori instruments) in London with taonga puoro virtuoso Horomona Horo and soprano Sharon Elizabeth, cond. PL, together with Pink and White Terraces for flute, harp and taonga puoro and Musings on a Maori Lullaby for solo harp with Gabriella Dall'Olio, harp and Anna Noakes, flute.
May 27th 2013 Premiere of Norfolk Suite for strings, inspired by re-visiting Norfolk after a twenty-year absence. English Music Festival New Commissions Concert, Dorchester Abbey, Oxon., Orchestra of St. Paul's, conductor Ben Palmer.
May 12th 2013 First concert performance of Festival of London March, composed when Lewis was sixteen and orchestrated eleven years later. Lichfield Guildhall, Lichfield Sinfonia, conducted by the composer. The march provided the finale for London Festival Ballet's 21st Birthday Gala at the London Coliseum in 1971, has been recorded twice and is broadcast from time to time on Classic FM Radio and Radio NZ Concert, New Zealand.
January 21st 2012 UK premiere of Tauranga Concerto with clarinet soloist Steve Dummer and the Musicians of All Saints under Andy Sherwood. All Saints Arts Centre, Lewes, Sussex.
January 12th 2012 Distinguished Turkish bassoonist Tolga Alpay, a champion of Lewis's music, performed Concerto Burlesco in Bursa with the Bursa State Symphony Orchestra under American conductor Dorian Wilson. Alpay has played the concerto several times with different Turkish State Orchestras and told Lewis: "Your concerto is famous all over Turkey!"
September 10th 2011 Rye Arts Festival 40th Anniversary opening concert, St. Mary's Church, Rye, Sussex. Premiere of Rye Festival Suite for strings and harp, a festival commission, in The English Idyll, a concert of English string music performed by The Cinque Ports Sinfonietta with guest artiste Sharon Elizabeth, presented and conducted by Paul Lewis.
June 26th 2011 Plymouth Pavilions, Devon. An English Overture, the Westward TV start-up music from 1971-81, received its first public performance in the final concert of the BBC's Light Fantastic weekend, played by the BBC Concert Orchestra under Gavin Sutherland. The concert was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 7.30pm the following evening. (Leading up to Light Fantastic, BBC Radio 3's daily This Week's Composers featured British light music composers. Lewis's Miniature Symphony was broadcast in the Friday June 24th edition at midday and repeated at 7pm.)
April 2011 Turkey: conducted the Izmir State Symphony Orchestra in an all-Paul Lewis concert: Sussex Symphony Overture, A Paris, Tauranga Concerto for clarinet and strings - world premiere with soloist Ian Scott (two encores) - and the world premiere of Pamir Khirghiz Suite, a forty minute work commissioned by the orchestra based on Lewis’s score to the award-winning film 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep which was shot in Turkey, extracts from which were screened at the concert and introduced by director Ben Hopkins.
February 2011 Rotorua Arts Festival, New Zealand: conducted the premiere and second performance of the complete Legends of Rotorua - Hinemoa and Tutanekai & Ihenga and the Fairy Folk of Mount Ngongataha - based on Maori legends, for story-teller, soprano, flute, harp and string quartet, with improvised solo part for Taongo Puoro played by charismatic virtuoso Horomona Horo. Text from the writings of Donald Stafford.
May 2010 Sounds New 2010 Contemporary Music Festival, Canterbury, England: premiere of Trio Romantico for harp, violin and ‘cello. Harp soloist Alex Rider.
April 2010 Tauranga, New Zealand: conducted three performances of Jazz at the Movies, a National Jazz Festival commission - a programme of rarely-seen vintage footage from the New Zealand Film Archive. The music is a joyous recreation of the kind of picture-house band that Lewis’s mother, uncle and aunts played in as teenagers in 1920s London. Scored for soprano doubling percussion, violin, guitar/banjo, piano and string bass.
April 2010 Rotorua Museum and Art Gallery, New Zealand: conducted two preview performances of Hinemoa and Tutanekai for story-teller, soprano. flute, harp, string quartet and taongo puoro, with text drawn from the writings of Donald Stafford. Taongo puoro soloist: Horomona Horo.
January 2009 Composed score for award-winning director Ben Hopkins' BBC TV documentary Naples, Open City, aka Napoli, City of the Damned, a Tigerly Films/BBC TV production. (Can be seen on Youtube.)
October 2008 Tauranga Civic Art Gallery, New Zealand, 1st anniversary concert: premiere of Perfume Notes - three vocalise arias for soprano and piano. Soloists: Sharon Elizabeth and PL.
April 2008 Composed incidental music for soprano Sharon Elizabeth's singing, cake-making, domestic goddess theatrical extravaganza Ising on the Cake. (Three performances in the Brighton Festival Fringe Festival and a further at St.Mary's House, Bramber, Sussex, in May 2008. Since performed many times in festivals in the UK and New Zealand. Lewis directs the Kitchen Sink Trio - violin, guitar and string bass - from the piano.)
October 2007 Theatro Verdi, Pordenone, Italy, Gala Finale of Le Giornato del Cinema Mute, the world's largest silent movie festival: conducted the Orchestra Sinfonica del Friuli Venezia Giulia in a screening of G.W. Pabst's 1929 silent movie masterpiece Pandora's Box. The performance was sold out and such was the demand for seats that tickets were sold for the afternoon rehearsal.
September 2007 Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, 25th anniversary: conducted the Royal Ballet Sinfonia in the premiere of his score for G.W.Pabst’s 1929 silent movie masterpiece Pandora’s Box to considerable acclaim at the Colston Hall. A Watershed, Bristol Silents, Giornate del Cinema Muto commission.
2007 Composed score and songs for The Madness of the Dance, Carol Morley's wonderfully off-the-wall short film, a Cannon and Morley production.
2006 Composed score for Ben Hopkins' multi-award-winning feature-length documentary 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep, a Tigerlily Films/BBC TV production.
