Cheryl Frances-hoad
Cheryl Frances-hoad’s first success as a composer came at 15 when she won the Lloyds Bank BBC Composer of the Year. She went on to study at the universities of Cambridge and London. Four discs of her music have been released, and on 27 Sept her new piano concerto, Between the Skies, the River and the Hills, is out on Rubicon.
This is the first proper concerto that I’ve had recorded. I met pianist Ivana Gavri at university, and we kept in contact. A few years later she commissioned me to write some miniatures, but we wanted to collaborate on something larger. She was inspired by Haydn’s Piano Concerto No. 11, in which there’s a beautiful, simple theme that’s thought to be a Bosnian round dance, which I’ve used unaltered. More and more, I like to write with particular performers in mind. Ivana’s suggestions really shaped the piece, probably more than she expected. One of the many things I’ve learnt is how wonderful it is to collaborate with the person you’re writing for. You always learn new things. And it’s important that the performer feels comfortable and able to express themselves. It ends up being a better performance.
I’m about to spend three months learning how to create electronic music. For years
I’ve said I’ll learn to do it in the evenings, but it’s never happened.
Now, I’ve been awarded an
Arts Council ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ grant, so I can properly learn. I want the flexibility to have that extra timbre in my work. I don’t want to get stuck in a rut; bringing in new inspiration is always good.
I had an extreme determination to be a composer. I’d been composing from when I started the cello – I have pieces for open strings. I was painfully shy as a kid and this was my most e ective way of expressing myself. I never had any problem with sending things o in the post and blowing my own trumpet that way. That was a way that, early on, I had quite a lot of success.
On my website, I include a ‘CV’ of my failures. It might be the most successful thing I’ve ever done! I have a constant state of guilt when things are going well, so I wanted to prove to myself that it wasn’t luck. Also, with social media there’s a pressure now to make your life sound like one constant stream of fabulousness. A little dose of reality is good.