Solo

dancing, dreaming, feasting, loving, warring 

for traverso flute A=415 (2024/25) 

Duration: 6'


Programme Note:

Written for Maria Filippova in response to Telemann's 10th flute fantasia, this piece is about cycles and endings. Taking the "resting points" of the original fantasia, and processing them, this piece cycles through resting points in a sparse, delicate texture.

LACUNA 

for organ (2024) 

Duration: 5'


Programme Note:

Based on the opening bars of the Ave Maris Stella, this work for solo organ contemplates the material in a sunken, meditative state. Inspired by drone and ambient music, I invite the performer to linger on every chord and every change, feeling the dense harmony filling the space around them.

The word Lacuna means “a blank space” which might be odd given that this dense music may feel like the opposite, but I want this music to fill the space it is performed as well as the people listening, becoming almost a background to their thoughts and feelings, almost like replacing the silence that existed before the music begun playing, to then becoming the silence.

Dropping Pearls in Ponds

for solo piano (2023)

Duration: 3' 30"


This piece was first premiered on the 15th of June 2023 by Tristan Vermeulen in an RCM Faculty Concert.


Programme Note:

The title of this piece stems from the image of pale, shimmering pearls being dropped into a dark, inky lake. The moonlight on the water and the reflection of the pearl seem to hold more gravity than the pearl’s impact itself. In the first section we hear a meditative dropping of individual pearls, whereas in the second section, the pearls are tossed into the water, almost pouring in, until there is no more left.

Shorthouse taps into this imagery by developing a pitch class system, and uses 12 tone pattern processing (P0, P1 etc.) to generate harmonic material that phases over each other like the reflections of water. The composer uses these processes in an intuitive sense, not using a row system but pulling from different processes to create a flowing harmonic structure.

In developing the rhythms heard in this piece, Shorthouse notated the rhythms he heard in running water and used plastic beads to simulate how a pearl might interact with water, also notating these impacts.

Lily, her daughter's hand

for solo piano (2022)

Duration: 4'


This piece was premiered on November 29th, 2023 at the Royal College of Music London as a part of the HeadOn photo festival, performed by Thomas Luke.


Programme Note:

This piece was written for the Head On Photo Festival 2022, in reaction to an image by Amy Woodward of the same title. 

Lily explores a mother’s night and what a mother gives up when she has a child. There is a tenderness imbued through the piece in contrast to the modal, unsettling harmony, with toplines in this piece often mimicking children's lullabies.

Lakeside Bells

for solo piano (2020)

Find recording here

Not available to purchase.


 © 2024 Thomas Shorthouse