LEAH KARDOS

Composer, producer, enthusiast

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Fitkin Fandom

25/08/09 18:21 Filed under: Fangirl
For all the years that I have moaned so loudly about there being no good new music out there, I apologise because I have been horribly misguided. I wasn’t actually looking. I mean, how does somebody find something when they have their eyes shut? they bump into things and stumble over them. And that’s what’s happened with me. Right now I’m waist deep in fantastic contemporary music (Fitkin, Harold Budd, Morton Subotnik, Salonen, Einoudi), all of it beautiful, all of it tonal, some of it embracing technology in ways that I have been dreaming about for some time. I feel like I’ve woken up just in time for the show and all the sour modernists have vacated the stage.

I have to write about my new obsession: the music of Graham Fitkin. For the first time in a long time a contemporary composer has grabbed my heart and given it a good squeeze - with music not written for film or any other context, but concert works involving technology, music in which I immediately recognise and know the vernacular language because it is the same as mine - tonal, rich with harmony and gentle repetition. Everything this guy writes I wish I had written.

I am convinced that classical music needs to embrace technology as a new voice and not just as a means to mock-up demos and scores. The language has changed, the modern ear is evolved. And there is sooooo much potential for beauty, just thinking about it makes my mouth water and my head spin.

Back to Graham. I bought a few scores from his website this morning, and ordered a few CDs. One is a collaboration with harpist Ruth Wall called “Still Warm” ... I’m loving the delays and electronica elements here.