Bedford Festival Overture

(1999)

Duration: 10 minutes

1) Wind band
2) Piano duet (1 piano, 4 hands)

1) First performed by Bedford School Band, cond. Guy Bennett, 27 November 1999, Great Hall, Bedford School
2) First performed by Tim Watts and Charles Martin, January 2008, Bedford School

Listen to the Piano duet version, performed by Tim Watts and Charles Martin:

Programme Note

This was the first piece I was commissioned to write as Composer-in-Residence at Bedford School. The piece is a conventional sonata form allegro, framed by a slower introduction and coda. The material for the piece is mostly built around the oscillation between two notes a tone apart, a device which is also a structural feature of “Night of the Dance”. In 2008, I produced an arrangement of the work for piano duet, which was performed in an Eileen Norris Showcase concert at Bedford School by Tim Watts and Charles Martin.