Stealing Steps
Convivium Music commissioned a 12-minute piece, Stealing Steps from John Woolrich for Graham Oppenheimer, viola and Mi-Kyung Lee, violin.
First performance — April 4th 2004 The Lawn, Lincoln UK
This event was in partnership with the University of Lincoln Concert Series
Second performance — August 30th 2004
The Architecture Building, University of Lincoln in the 2004 Lincoln and Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival
Published by Faber Music
Programme note for Stealing Steps
Hamlet — from Act V Scene 1
But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw’d me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me intil the land,
As if I had never been such.
“Completed earlier this year, “Stealing Steps” for violin and viola, is in a number of short continuous sections, beginning quietly with an opening out from the violin’s initial held note. A series of forcefully rhythmic, but still quite, overlapping phrases for the two instruments leads to the violin taking flight in a flurry of rapid figurations. These three sections recur throughout the piece, providing both recognisable landmarks and springboards for new ideas. The violin’s rapid flight, for example, becomes a sequence of mercurial exchanges between the two instruments in the long central section, which includes the first really loud music of the piece. As this evaporates thre is a clear return to the opening, and the music becomes increasingly fragmented, though always recognisably referring back to earlier secions. The piece finally withdraws in a passage of very quiet, rapid tremolando writing leading to the unemphatic final bars.” John Woolrich
with support from Arts Council England East Midlands
This commission is part of a long-term Viola Project which has also included:
Photographic exhibition — Viola Viola 2005
Two Lincolnshire photographers, Dave O’Donnell and Jean Burns Thomson, were commissioned to highlight the instrument in 50 photographs. This was exhibited at Lincoln Central Library Community Room, Skegness Church Farm Museum, Spalding Springfield Fenscape, Sleaford PlayhouseTheatre, Grantham Guildhall Arts Centre, and Lincoln Drill Hall Ruston Room
with support from Lincolnshire County Council