2021 – MMO composition project “Cabin Fever”

In early 2021 we found ourselves still unable to rehearse normally and although the weekly sessions on Zoom were still enjoyable, we needed something fresh. We decided to attempt a group composition inspired by Minimalism.

Each week for half a term, we devoted some of of our Zoom rehearsal time to activities related to this – using Minimalist procedures to generate rhythms and patterns and building blocks that would eventually be stitched together into a larger piece. The project was supervised by our MD Hugh Boyde but at every stage of sketching, composing and scoring, the group was actively involved. Players submitted ideas using music software, or scraps of paper, or recordings they made on mobile phone.

Here is the first draft of the resulting score, “Cabin Fever”. As of May 2021, the group has started to rehearse this piece in our face to face meetings and we hope to make a proper audio or video recording before long.