ELEANOR ALBERGA DEEP BLUE SEA (2020 Award)
for soprano and harp
Performed and recorded on 15th November 2020 at the Great Hall, Blackheath Halls, London
performed by Héloïse Werner and Anne Denholm of The Hermes Experiment
To obtain a copy of any of the commissioned recordings, please contact the Trust at info@michaelcuddigantrust.com
Eleanor Alberga is a highly regarded British composer with commissions and premieres from the BBC Proms and The Royal Opera. Her work is noted for its emotional impact, depth of craft and brilliant colouring and orchestration. Born and growing up in Jamaica, her cultural inheritance is wide including performing with the Jamaican Folk Singers and as a dancer with an African Dance company. Coming to the UK initially on a scholarship to study piano and singing at the Royal Academy of Music, her compositional talents came to the fore whilst working in the contemporary dance world and she now boasts a rich catalogue of works in all genres: her Opera based on an Isabel Allende story, ‘Letters of a Love Betrayed’, drew comparison with Debussy’s Pelléas and Berg’s Wozzeck; three string quartets; a growing sequence of chamber music Nocturnes featuring horn and oboe, and orchestral music including two violin concertos and a rip-roaring adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as well as her Last Night of the Proms opener Arise Athena. Her early piano music has a deep connection to her Jamaican heritage and there is music for solo voice and for choir.
Alberga now lives in the English countryside with her husband, the violinist Thomas Bowes, and together they have founded and nurtured an original festival - Arcadia.
“The Hermes Experiment ... in all their diverse glory”
The Hermes Experiment is a contemporary quartet made up of harp, clarinet, voice and double bass. They are winners of the Royal Over-Seas League Mixed Ensemble Competition 2019, Tunnell Trust Awards 2017, Nonclassical’s Battle of the Bands 2014, Making Music Selected Artists 2019/20 and Park Lane Group Young Artists 2015/16. Capitalising on their deliberately idiosyncratic combination of instruments, the ensemble regularly commissions new works, as well as creating their own innovative arrangements and venturing into live free improvisation. The ensemble has commissioned over 60 composers at various stages of their careers. They were shortlisted in the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards 2019 in the Young Artists Category and their debut album HERE WE ARE was released in July 2020 on Delphian Records to critical acclaim: “an imaginative disc that mirrors our current musical landscape” – The Observer.
Recent highlights include performances at Wigmore Hall, BBC Radio 3 Open Ear at LSO St Luke’s, Tallinn Music Week, St Petersburg’s Sound Ways Festival, Southbank Centre, Kings Place and Spitalfields Festival. The Hermes Experiment were one of the showcase artists at the Classical:NEXT Conference 2019. In January 2019, they celebrated their fifth birthday with a concert supported by Arts Council England and RVW Trust, and recorded for BBC Radio 3.
The quartet has received funding from Arts Council England, Aldeburgh Music, the RVW Trust, Hinrichsen Foundation, Britten-Pears Foundation, Future of Russia Foundation, Oleg Prokofiev Trust, Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust, PRS for Music Foundation and Help Musicians UK.
thehermesexperiment.com / @TheHExperiment