Etudes de Cloches (2002)

These were composed in 2001 and premiered by Mary Dullea at the Blackheath Concert Halls in February 2002: they were subsequently performed by Ian Pace.

As the title suggests, these five pieces all utitlise various change-ringing methods (Little Grandsire Caters, Reverse Stedman Doubles, Cambridge Surprise Major, for example) to generate pitch material (by way of combining various types of doubling, ostinati etc). During my time teaching composition at King's College, London, I became very attached to these methods, which, applied to more complex and (to me) compositionally more interesting pitch collections than mere major scales, could prove a very useful tool, as much in teaching students as my own practice. – Rob Keeley