Collaboration with the English Symphony Orchestra

I will have more detail as the project unfolds. In the meantime, here is an overview of what we have discussed. I can’t wait to get started.

I’m excited to announce my collaboration with the English Symphony Orchestra (ESO) and its artistic director Kenneth Woods, conductor. This collaboration involves several stages that form a holonic family of pieces ranging from solo to orchestral.

The orchestral piece, imagined from the ground up, is constructed from its solo components. To achieve this, ESO will programme my music in the 2023-24 season with a view to ESO musicians getting to know my work, initially through newly written or adapted solo and small ensemble compositions. It is intended that once my work is familiar, ESO will commission the holonic orchestral work for performance in late 2023-24 or the 2024-25 season. This work will form the basis of an ongoing collaboration to look at place and develop my compositional practice and the confluence of visual and musical art.

Constructed from the orchestral commission, new works will be built around compositions that function in different contexts and with differing ensemble sizes that will be effective in various settings, from community halls to concert venues. These compositions will be supported through meaningful engagement that accesses music through participatory visual art, composition, performance, landscape and walking activities.’

Online presentation of my compositional research at City University of New York

innovation:SOUND:technology (IST) #2: Philippe Kocher and Marc Yeats

The innovation:SOUND:technology (IST) series is centered on creative approaches and novel technological advances with aesthetic implications for music, instrument design, performance art, sound art, and digital art. In the second virtual event of the IST series, composers and researchers Philippe Kocher and Marc Yeats introduce their creative works, artistic thinking, and research surrounding synchronicity, complex time structures, polytemporal music, and technological advances enabling new temporal and spatial musical experiences.

download here

solo and ensemble music: volume 2 is the second of several albums focusing on my solo and ensemble compositional output released through Polytempo Records.

It brings together a collection of solo and ensemble pieces created between 2014 and 2023 that showcase new developments and thought in my compositional output particularly concerning polytemporal composition, that is, music where two or more instrumentalists perform using independent, different tempi simultaneously.

The album contains 78 minutes of music and generous 13-page PDF liner notes.

Performing on this album are:

Raymond Brien • Ondrej Veselý • Daniele Colombo • Gavin Stewart • Jeremy Little • Eluned Pierce • Robyn Austin • Anonymous Strings (see below).

New Collaboration

I look forward to working with the fabulous trumpeter Fabio Ne Fabbri over the coming year and beyond. We had our first collaborative zoom session today to lay out the groundwork for the first trumpet solo I shall write for him. Fabio is, for me, the perfect musician. He has the heart of an explorer, a warrior’s fearlessness and an artist’s expressive intention.

I shall be throwing a great many trumpet challenges Fabio’s way within the confines of this 13-minute piece which explores a great deal of the capacity of the trumpet and the intellectual and musical stamina of the person playing it (those musicians who have taken on my music before will know exactly of what I speak). The piece will be full of quarter and microtones, rapid flourishes and gestural outburst, colour and lyricism.

My job now is to work up my sketch into a part and get that to Fabio before Christmas so he can begin studying it over the holidays. I do love these collaborations.

We aim to make a number of videos following the path of this collaboration released through Music Patron. If you support me there (https://musicpatron.com/composer/marc-yeats/), you’ll be able to get the whole story as it unfolds after Christmas.

If you’d like to support my work and projects by becoming a patron please use this link.

Download Now Available

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Ian Pace is a phenomenal pianist, a man whose musicality and intellect I have admired for many years. I have heard him fearlessly play some of the most challenging music of our time with huge flair, passion, insight and musicality.

I’ve been writing piano music since 1997 and over the years have built up a substantial catalogue of works, many of the pieces highly ambitious and virtuosic beyond normal pianistic expectations. I have dedicated many of these pieces to prominent international pianists, but across the years – due to a number of factors, mainly around the music’s enormous challenges – only a tiny handful of the pieces (often the least frightening and shortest of them) have been performed live, and until now, none were recorded.

In this amazing collaboration with Ian, for the first time, I have found a pianist who not only enjoys and can meet these musical challenges but is a pianist who actually wants to perform my work because of the very nature of the writing itself.

This album is the first recorded collection of my piano works, ranging from 1997 to the present day, and includes pieces deemed by many pianists to be too challenging to play. The recording of this album has been made possible through the amazing generosity and support of over 120 people through a crowdfunding campaign initiated by Sound and Music’s ‘Compose, Curate, Engage’ initiative.

Ian and I would like to acknowledge our deepest gratitude to everyone who has pre-ordered the album, ordered our exclusives, donated, sponsored and supported the project from the outset. We couldn’t have achieved this without you!

PhD Thesis Published

After three years of research, one year of delays, a pandemic, several lockdowns and a major heart attack, I am finally able to present my PhD research Control, Flexibility, Flux and Complexity: A Timecode-Supported Approach to Polytemporal Orchestral Composition. The download is free and available from White Rose Ethesis Online.

Music Painting Landscape and Me: A British Music Collection Exclusive.

In this new monthly video series, Marc Yeats explores his relationship to composing, painting and landscape. Click here to see the story so far.

“Hello. My name is Marc Yeats. I’m a composer and painter. I’m just starting to write a book supported through Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice grant titled ‘Music, Painting, Landscape and Me’ that explores my relationship to composing, painting and landscape and I’d like you to join me on this explorative journey. 

As part of my research, I invite you to think about, discuss and answer some of the questions I’m posing in the book. I’m interested to know your perspectives to help focus and challenge my own ideas and responses as I believe many of the questions I’m asking myself are universal to all artists. In this regard, I’d like to think that any exchange of ideas and positions may help all of us develop a clearer understanding of the deeper aspects of our practice. 

To move the conversation along and share my thoughts, I will be producing a series of monthly videos that will document my questions, thought processes and general ramblings as I share my journey with you. I hope these videos act as an invitation and provocation for you to think about your work and practice, too. At the end of the series of videos, it will be possible for us to exchange views (the format for this has yet to be decided). Your thoughts, verbal or written, will not be included in any part of the book and will remain completely private.

Writing from my perspective as a composer and painter, the book aims to demystify, disentangle and clarify my creative thought by asking: What compels me to do what I do? Why is my practice as it is? What elements of landscape, music and painting are transmitted across these media, if any? Why do certain landscapes affect me so deeply? And finally, what do I mean by a sense of place and how, if at all, is it embodied in my work? 

If you have ever asked yourself any questions similar to these, then please join me.

I may not be able to fully answer the questions I have posed for myself but hope that this inquiry, journey and the eventual book will provide some useful insight for all of us on a similarly questioning path. Without a doubt, this is the most daunting project I have ever undertaken and your company along the way will be greatly appreciated.”

Music Patron

This is an exciting new venture I’ve been keeping under wraps and which I’m very excited and proud to be a part of.

“Made possible by the Boltini Trust, Music Patron is an ambitious new online platform that will connect composers directly with patrons, run by Sound and Music’s Sonia Stevenson and we’re delighted to see two Composers Edition composers amongst its very first creative beneficiaries.

The brainchild of philanthropist and composer Anthony Bolton, Music Patron will both create new and direct existing sources of funding for the vital creative work of today’s composers – work which is all too often held up by a lack of funding. Music Patron is motivated by the ambition to support more composers to have more time to focus on composing, as well as to attract new audiences and patrons to engage directly with composers and the music they create. Funding through Music Patron will complement established funding models for composers in the UK, including commission fees, royalty payments, commercial income, project funding and awards.

To find out more about Music Patron and all of the 10 composers being supported and how you can help support the scheme head to soundandmusic.org/musicpatron/first-cohort/.“I believe Music Patron has the potential to help composers make the financial aspects of their working lives more sustainable. An initiative like this can really make a difference to the future of music creation.

There’s a fabulous selection of 10 composers on this first cohort drawn from incredibly wide backgrounds. I believe that what we learn will help build a brighter future for many music creators.

With funding opportunities shrinking, funding criteria becoming more specifically tied to ever-changing social rather than necessarily artistic outcomes, the room to support experimentation dwindling and ever-larger numbers of individuals applying for funds, it’s clear music creators need other ways to help them continue doing what they – we – do.

Philanthropy is hugely underdeveloped in the U.K. and an initiative like this paves the way to new ways of thinking around how audiences and interested parties can connect with and directly support the work of others.

It’s not just being involved with Music Patron that’s exciting in and of itself, it’s the way Music Patron has the potential to remodel how music creators are supported in the future that really gets me interested. I’ve been part of talks about this initiative for some years and know the passion that the team at Sound and Music in association with their own visionaries and philanthropists have maintained and nurtured for some time to make this happen now. All strength and thanks to them.

This stuff matters to all of us!

download here

solo and ensemble music: volume 1 is the first of a number of albums focusing on my solo and ensemble compositional output released through Polytempo Records.

It brings together a collection of solo and ensemble pieces created between 2014 and 2021 that showcase new developments and thought in my compositional output particularly concerning polytemporal composition, that is, music where two or more instrumentalists perform using independent, different tempi simultaneously.

The album contains 84-minutes of music and comes with generous 20-page PDF liner notes.

Performing on this album are: Gleb Kanasevich • Carlton Vickers • Carla Rees • Karin de Fleyt • Daniele Colombo • Caleb Herron • Dirk Amrein • Geert Callaert • Christopher Redgate • Eugene Lee • Minsi Yang • Stephen Upshaw • Patrick Tapio Johnson • Roger Heaton • Marie Scheer • Ashley Myall • Jeremy Little • Eluned Pierce • Anonymous Strings (see below).

As of the 12th October 2021, I now have my first degree and it’s a PhD in music composition. I am now Dr Yeats.

After four years, a number of external setbacks and a pandemic, it feels surreal to be able to say this. I’m very happy. I’m very exhausted. Huge thanks to so many people, but just now, to Scott McLaughlin and Benjamin Oliver for such an enjoyable and constructive viva, and to Michael Spencer and Martin Iddon for supporting me as supervisors, colleagues and friends, and to my friends, past and present, at WRoCAH, Caryn Douglas and Clare Meadley. Also Mark, Sadie, Jane and my family for always being there through thick and thin.

I was not naturally drawn to academia. As a self-taught composer with no music education, no technical language to express my ideas and no academic qualifications, universities felt like alien places full of the kind of learning I did not possess.

Despite twenty-two years working internationally as a professional composer, a lack of intellectual self-confidence prevented me from engaging with these institutions in any meaningful way. Now, after nearly four years of doctoral study, my view of academia and my place within it has radically altered and my experiences as a practice-researcher have been transformative.

Although initially resistant to suggestions and advice from those around me, I was sufficiently ‘bullied’ — in the kindest way — particularly and relentlessly by my partner, Mark Hewitt, into investigating the possibility of undertaking a PhD in music composition and situating my ongoing research within academia. Though reluctant, I made tentative enquiries through friends and contacts working in universities and presented my research ideas to them.

Before long, I was encouraged to apply to the University of Leeds by my current supervisor, Dr Michael Spencer, who together with Professor Martin Iddon, my co-supervisor, held my hand through the application process to secure a place at the School of Music in Leeds University and subsequently, a second application to secure a scholarship from The White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH). Following a successful application to WRoCAH, I encountered Caryn Douglas (then WRoCAH Manager) and Clare Meadley (WRoCAH administrator) who became part of my life for the next three years and supported my studies and requests for additional training, experience and funding with creativity, kindness, interest and enthusiasm, making my PhD journey as useful, enjoyable and straightforward as possible.

Together, Mic, Martin, Caryn and Clare have been the face of my academic experience throughout which, I have felt valued and respected. Completing my doctoral studies would have been impossible without them, not least because entering university at PhD level as a fifty-seven-year-old without any previous academic experience was daunting in the extreme and I needed help transitioning from ‘civilian composer’ to formal practice-researcher. The supervision I received from Mic and Martin to aid this transition and much more besides, was exemplary, focused and friendly. I had a real sense they believed in my research and my capacity to deliver it. For this support and belief, they have my heartfelt thanks.

At home, the emotional contours of my PhD journey were played out at their most acute and personal with Mark who supported me through the triumphs, trials and tribulations of the past four years, including the particularly exacting circumstances that devastated the final year of my research project due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Mark has been a strength and sounding board throughout.

I would also like to offer huge thanks to Dr Lauren Redhead, Dr Ian Pace, Dr Sadie Harrison and William APM for their resources, advice and support as well as to colleagues in academia and the wider music world, my friends and family and indeed, anyone who showed an interest in my research journey, offered advice, enthusiasm, or showed kindness, I am deeply grateful.

I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that my timecode-supported polytemporal chamber orchestra composition, ‘the unimportance of events’ for 22-players, premiered at this year’s Tectonics Glasgow and brilliantly performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, has been selected by BBC Radio 3 as one of three works representing the U.K. at this year’s International Rostrum of Composers in Belgrade. https://www.facebook.com/International.Music.Council

My huge thanks are also due to Ilan Volkov, whose decision to programme my piece at Tectonics Glasgow 21 made inclusion in the Composers Rostrum possible. A full list of selected composers from around the world can be found here: http://rostrumplus.net/2021/10/04/presented-works-2021/)

The International Rostrum of Composers (IRC), organized by the International Music Council, is an international forum of representatives of broadcasting organizations who come together for the purpose of exchanging and broadcasting contemporary music. Currently, over 30 national radio networks participate in the Rostrum presenting some 60 works composed within the five years preceding the Rostrum. After the listening sessions, the assembly of delegates selects and recommends the most important works in two categories: general and “young composers”. These and other works will be presented in concerts and broadcast after the Rostrum by the participating and other interested radio stations.

Moreover, all works presented at the IRC are made available by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to its wide network of members and associate members via satellite. These dissemination schemes ensure excellent international coverage for the composers.

Since the foundation of the IRC in 1955, some 400 composers have been promoted and their works broadcast thousands of times within the network of participating radios. After 65 years, the IRC continues today to be the most important platform for the promotion of contemporary music via radio broadcast with some 800 broadcasts of the selected works in the last season. Moreover, the IRC is an invaluable occasion to meet colleagues from all over the world and share contemporary music.

Besides the high number of broadcasts, selected composers in the two categories are offered a commission. For the General Category, IMC commissions a work which will be recorded and broadcast by Radio France while for the Under-30 category, thanks to Swedish Radio, the selected composer benefits from a short-residence program with recording and live broadcast with the Ensemble NEO in Sweden. From 2015 to 2018 the IRC was part of a broader project called Rostrum+ which was co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Using clear language and written from my perspective as an artist/composer for other artists, composers and arts-interested readers, this book would aim to inform and inspire those exploring their own practice across different media as I set out to demystify, disentangle and clarify creative experiences, conclusions and assumptions through the lens of my own work.

Although I have experience in academic writing, I have not written a book before, so this activity develops entirely new skills and requires new research, learning and partnerships.
Initial expressions of interest include:

• An external critical support network with the schools of music and art at a London university

• Exploring publishing partnerships

• 9-talking head videos (one per month) for my YouTube channel and other organisational outlets (to be confirmed) that document, explore and share this journey.

I have been creating compositions and paintings intuitively or using various processes, particularly with composition, for around three decades. The time has come for me to ask some deeply personal questions about why and how I make these works.

To move forward in my practice and create evermore connected work, it is now time to ask:
• what compels me to do what I do?

• why is my practice as it is?

• why do certain landscapes affect me so deeply?

• what elements of landscape, music and painting are transmitted across these media?

• what exactly is a sense of place and how is it embodied in my work?

Although frequently asked questions, explanations are often wrapped in impenetrable philosophical or metaphysical language that can feel disconnected from the lived artistic experience, or from my lived experience, at least.

Why does this matter?

Because approaching these questions as a practising artist rather than a philosopher may provide unique insight into actions and motivation, shining a light onto what are internalised and little understood processes.
In seeking answers about my own practice, I may provide answers for others.
Supported through a critical network of scholars and artists, this is an intensely personal project driven by my curiosity and developmental needs.

The possibility of becoming a published author positions my creative practice differently, opening opportunities for conference and artistic presentation, meaningful joint concert and visual art exhibitions/installations/lectures and establishes me as a thinker and writer about artistic practice as well as a maker of music and paintings.
So there’s the blurb. I hope you find this project as exciting and interesting as I do. It is unlikely I will be able to answer all of my questions – much of how we operate artistically remains deeply embedded within our bodies, mind and hearts, senses and sensations, and is difficult to articulate such affects in words, but like peeling back the layers of an onion, I’m curious to see just how far I can get along this path, hopefully identifying the territories that bound what is unknown, or even, at this time, unknowable, along the way. This is not a technical instruction book about how to paint or compose, it’s a book about *why* I paint and compose and *how* music, painting and landscape are connected to each other, to me and to my practice.

Here it is. The world premiere of ‘the unimportance of events’ for 22 players, (2021), performed by members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as part of Tectonics Glasgow 2021.

The piece is dedicated to my friend and colleague Jason Eckardt.

Thanks to Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell for including me in this fantastic festival of new music.

This composition is my latest timecode-supported polytemporal composition and the largest to be so far performed at 22-players.

To find out more about the piece, please click here.