I was brought in as resident composer for Amaze Me Leader 2018, this entailed writing a piece that involved all the participants in the creation of it and that they could be involved in the performance of it.  At the start of the week I introduced the them to ‘In C’ by Terry Riley, a minimalist work written for an ensemble of any size and instrumentation based on a series of short musical phrases.  We discussed the concept and structure behind the piece and how it would form the basis for our own, it also provided an opportunity for the participants to play through a section of the piece using looping software and portable speakers.

Using this format would allow everyone to be involved in the process and ultimately influence the outcome of the piece.  

The resulting piece would be made up of 45 individual melodic phrases, one for each of the Amaze Me Leader participants.  

Over the course of the week I spoke to each of the participants and asked a series of questions, using their answers as a basis for their musical motifs.

At the end of the week we performed a short version of the piece using 8 virtual instruments and looping software with portable speakers alongside Double Bass, Nyckelharpa and Fiddle.