OCA Music: Telling a Story about your Own Work

Composer Neil Tòmas Smith reflects on being selected to write a piece for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Dunedin Consort, and soprano Anna Dennis.

When proposing new ideas to performers, commissioners, or ensembles, it is unbelievably useful to have a story to tell about your work. This does not need to be a literal plot or narrative but a convincing reason why the piece should exist.

This was hammered home to me by a recent experience answering a joint call for a new work for the Dunedin Consort and Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Essentially, they asked, who would like to write a piece for symphony orchestra and Baroque orchestra simultaneously?

Everybody, I assume. Hence, my confidence in being selected was far from high when filling out the online form in Summer 2023. Each composer had around 150 words to pitch their idea of how they imagined this unique piece would take shape. 

It is tempting to respond to these creative opportunities with certain quantitative measures—what forces, what duration, what inspiration—but taking this approach risks neglecting your text as a performance. Another approach is thinking about getting the reader excited about hearing the piece, even if they do not have all the detail.

Crafting such a story is far from a simple task, especially one that allows you the creative freedom you will need when completing the work in the event of you being selected. My own piece will be based on certain surviving scraps of Renaissance music from Scotland. So little exists that tiny fragments, such as a slate discovered in an old drain in Paisley, can be field-defining discoveries. 

Where all the plentiful music from this time went is a bit of a mystery. Much was destroyed by the rather efficient post-reformation Scots themselves, while a literal boatload of records and books was lost in a shipwreck. It is with the latter that my piece description began:

In December 1661, the ‘Elizabeth of Burntisland’ sank off the coast of Northumberland, sending a huge swathe of Scotland’s archives and music to oblivion. This has led to the assumption that during these lost centuries (ca. 1200–1500), little music of sophistication was written or performed. This commission will use new research from the University of Edinburgh to creatively debunk this assumption.

This will involve using fragments that are known to have been composed in Scotland during the period, as well as texts that describe the provision of music, such as Christine Geddes, who asked that 15 chaplains sing mass for the ‘souls of her and her deceased husband, their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and all the faithful dead unrequited’…

I’m not saying it is perfect, but it is certainly more engaging than a simple description of what my plans involved. There can often be a sense of trepidation about being held to account for the descriptions of pieces at this stage, but it would be a strange commissioner indeed who would not expect the ideas to develop over time.

So, tell your stories; engage your readers. Who knows where it might lead?

Further research and reading can be found here:

https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2020/08/stormy-past/

https://www.rsno.org.uk/liveevent/wagners-ring-symphony/

www.ntsmusic.co.uk