David P. Graham (UK / DE) – Two Footnotes
David P. Graham about his piano piece “Two footnotes”
“Faced with the opportunity to compose music for this ambitious Beethoven-project I remembered the impact all his Bagatelles made on me at first hearing and first playing through. Op 126/4 has always been my favourite. I chose two bars and imagined being allowed to start there but tell a completely different story. The Two Footnotes should thus be considered simply comments on that stunning original. They should be played together, with hardly any break.”
Sheet Music Edition Vol. 1 – available here: SHOP
David P. Graham is the organiser of Vol. 8 of the sheet music edition (young composers).
Piano piece “Two footnotes” – in concert:
18th Oktober 2013 – world premiere Footnote 1 – Foyer der Deutschen Welle – Susanne Kessel, piano
29th November 2014 – world premiere Footnote 2 – Bonner Kunstverein – Susanne Kessel, piano
22nd April 2015 – Rheinhotel Dreesen, Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
23rd August 2015 – Studio der Beethovenhalle, Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
23rd September – Post Tower Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
21st November 2015 – Bonner Kunstverein – Susanne Kessel, piano
2nd July 2016 – Kunstmuseum Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
4th March 2018 – Woelfl-Haus, Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
30th August 2018 – Klavierhaus Klavins, Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
14th December 2018 – Klavierhaus Klavins, Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
24th February 2019 – Emmaus-Kirche, Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
26th March2019 – Kammermusiksaal Beethoven-Haus Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
9th September 2019 – Historisches Gemeindezentrum Bonn – Susanne Kessel, piano
About David P. Graham (*1951)
David Paul Graham was born in Stratford-upon- Avon, UK, studied at Reading University and with Hans Werner Henze in Cologne. He was three years in Montepulciano, teaching at the music school and organising the local musictheatre contribution to the annual festival. Here he initiated a childrens’ composition course which produced Tre Opere per Burattini [Three Puppet-Operas] written and performed by young people. This project has become a model. His works have been performed and broadcast in Europe and Latin-America. He composed several song-cycles (texts by Hans-Ulrich Treichel, Richard Nöbel, Rose Ausländer, Bert Brecht, Ian Stephen), larger works which have been premiered at the Almeida Festival; Münchener Biennale; Columbus Festival, Udine; Steirische Herbst, Austria and in many German cities. He has written music for radio-plays, film music for Volker Schloendorff and Bill Douglas, Music/Video with Harald Klemm (Dolly, a 20-minute artistic commentary on genetic engineering) and his latest operas were The Girls from Theresienstadt for Thomas Neuhoff and the Youth Choir of the Lukas Church, Bonn and Five and It (from Five Children and It). His didactic work with young people is widely known. In 1996 Lighting the Candle brought together the Tate Gallery, the Orchestra of St. John’s Smith Square and the National Youth Music Theatre in the performance of a stage piece with libretto and music by pupils from a London school. Graham teaches regularly a children’s composition-class in Düsseldorf, has often been composer in residence at university courses (Spain) and 7 times member of the organising committee of a Cuban festival for new music. Website David P. Graham
Photo gallery: David P. Graham at “250 piano pieces for Beethoven”
29th November 2014, 22. April 2015
