Writing the Future

‘Time with musicians – I don’t know who would turn that down’
Mira Calix

Launched in November 2010, the London Sinfonietta’s Writing the Future scheme gives composers the opportunity to develop a working relationship with the ensemble.

Writing the Future encourages and nurtures the best new music by inviting composers to work closely with London Sinfonietta musicians as they develop their ideas. Composers on the scheme write a Sinfonietta Short (a solo work) and can then be commissioned to write a small-scale chamber work, collaborating and workshopping their pieces with our players throughout the process and receiving support from an experienced composer mentor. Works created as part of the scheme receive a public performance and are recorded by the ensemble.

The London Sinfonietta actively promotes all works written as part of the scheme.

Works written as part of the scheme during the 2010/11 Music Programme:

- Shiva Feshareki, departing in peace, arriving with love (for solo clarinet)
- Shiva Feshareki, Valentine’s Rhapsody (for piccolo, bass clarinet, horn, violin and cello)
- Edmund Finnis, Veneer (for solo viola with reverb)
- Edmund Finnis, Unfolds (for flute doubling alto flute & piccolo, clarinet doubling clarinet in E flat, horn, violin and cello)
- Tim Hodgkinson, The Glow and Zig-Zag (for solo French horn)
- Tim Hodgkinson, Hail and Flummox (for flute, clarinet, horn, violin and cello)
- Isambard Khroustaliov, Obsolve (for solo mixed percussion with electronics)
- Isambard Khroustaliov, Zoetrope (for flute, clarinet, horn, violin and cello)
- Duncan MacLeod, Diesis (for solo double bass with electronics)

Find out more about the featured composers on the Artist pages of this website. And listen to the commissioned works now on our media player in the Listen & Watch section!

Writing the Future is not currently open to applications. If you are a composer or sound artist interested in getting involved in future years of the scheme, please contact us at: now@londonsinfonietta.org.uk or on 020 7239 9340.

If you are a promoter interested in finding out more about the Writing the Future commissions, or if there are other ways that you are interested in being involved in the scheme, please contact Tina Speed at tina.speed@londonsinfonietta.org.uk or on 020 7239 9340.

Writing the Future is generously supported by The Boltini Trust, The John S Cohen Foundation, Anthony Mackintosh and Michael & Patricia McLaren-Turner