At the Speed of Stillness

orchestra
2011/12

“Writing fast music is always a test of a composer, and Bray passed it with flying colours.”

The Telegraph

Duration 11’
Instrumentation 3(III=picc).3(III=corA).2.Bcl.2.Dbn. – 4331 – timpani – perc(3) – harp – piano (cel.) – strings (min. 12.10.8.8.6)
First Performance 29 July 2012, Royal Albert Hall, London; Sir Mark Elder, Aldeburgh World Orchestra
Commissioned by the BBC Proms
Recording Debut Disc At the Speed of Stillness Download the album from iTunes here

Further Performances
21.7.14 *US Premiere* Tanglewood Music Centre, U.S.; Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, Karina Canellakis conductor
5.11.17 *Canadian Premiere* ISCM World Music Days in Vancouver, Canada; Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Bramwell Tovey conductor
7.5.20 *French Premiere* Auditorium, Opéra de Dijon, France; Orchester Dijon Bourgogne, Marzena Diakun conductor – cancelled due to COVID-19
8 / 10.10.20 S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium – Benaroya Hall, Seattle, U.S; Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Shiyeon Sung conductor – cancelled due to COVID-19
17.06.22 Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, UK; Daniele Rosina conductor, RBC Symphony Orchestra

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Dedicated to Mark-Anthony Turnage, At The Speed of Stillness derives part of its inspiration in a surrealist poem by Dora Maar:

I rested in the arms of my arms
I no longer slept
It was night in the summer,
winter in the day
An eternal shivering of thoughts
Fear love fear love
Close the window open the window
You’ll see you’ll see
The hummingbird motionless as a star.

The energy, sense of endless movement and of exhaustion encapsulated in the poem permeates the music. Important also is the play with paradoxical ideas- the contrary notion that something moving quicker than the human eye is able to detect can appear to be motionless or still.

Harnessed to this ‘energetic charge’ in the work are expressions of ideas that resulted from contemplation of Sizewell Power Station and the power lines stemming from it, which the composer drew on as a source of inspiration. Mesmerised by the relentlessness of the structures, the restless shifts in perspective as you chase the power source across the countryside. The constant duality of the power lines, an underlying energy- hidden and intimate almost, yet zinging with immense power and force.

This film was made possible thanks to ACE funding via thespace