Ian Venables | Featured Composer

This year, you celebrate your 70th birthday – what plans do you have?

“Celebrations are taking place around all the wonderful performances of my music in the UK and USA – it is going to be such an exciting time! I am particularly looking forward to this year’s Elgar Festival where I am Featured Composer. This will involve me in working with a group of young singers and talented composers who will be the next generation of aspiring musicians.”

Worcester is your home; have Worcestershire and the Cotswolds been important to you as a composer?

“Some of my most important premieres have taken place in venues such as, Worcester Cathedral, Cheltenham Town Hall, Gloucester Cathedral and Great Malvern Priory. I am thankful that my music has found a devoted following and that I have, over the years, received commissions from some of the major music festivals in the region, particularly the Three Choirs Festival, the Cheltenham Music Festival and the Malvern Concert Club. Of course, Worcestershire and the Cotswold landscapes have inspired several works, including my song cycle ‘The Song of the Severn’, written for the baritone Roderick Williams.

The Cotswolds have spawned a number of composers – do you feel a part of that tradition?

“The Cotswolds have clearly inspired many of the British composers I love and admire; Vaughan Williams, Holst, and Gurney to name but a few. There is something very special about this landscape, and especially the Cotswold Edge overlooking the River Severn. One of my favourite haunts is to climb upon Bredon Hill to a place just above Woollas Hall where the poet John Masefield lived. The view across the valley to the Malverns at sunset is one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring experiences I can recall.”

Do you feel a close connection to Elgar, Worcestershire’s most famous composer?

“The very first work I composed when I moved to Worcester in 1986 was Pastorale for violin and piano. It was inspired by one of my earliest excursions into the Worcestershire countryside to visit Elgar’s grave and climb the Malvern Hills. Elgar has certainly been an important presence in my life, and I have recently written an essay about his influence upon my music for the Elgar Society’s 75^th Anniversary collection of tributes to be published next year. The essay discusses the background to my setting of John Drinkwater’s poem, ‘Elgar’s Music’, which forms part of my song cycle The Song of the Severn.”

What can we hear at the Elgar Festival and what are your highlights?

“There are a number of my works being programmed and I am especially looking forward to the premiere of my Soliloquy for solo viola and strings with the magnificent English Symphony Orchestra and to the Gala Concert in Worcester Cathedral when my Orchestral song cycle Out of the Shadows will be performed by the baritone, Gareth Brynmor John and the ESO, conducted by Kenneth Woods. And not forgetting the Young Singer’s Masterclass that I am giving with the acclaimed soprano, April Fredrick, or having two of my ‘cello pieces performed by Raphael Wallfisch and Simon Callaghan.”

When you are working on a new piece, is there a typical day?

“Not really! Once I begin a new work, time seems to stand still, and sometimes an entire day can pass without me even noticing. Of course, now that I am getting a little older, I do have to take more breaks. But, once I am composing, I try to keep the pace going before the inspiration falters or slows down. Generally, I work on a new piece continually until it is finished, whether this takes a few weeks or a few months.”