PLAYING FOR TIME

for Brass Quintet

PREMIERED AT THE

NORFOLK & NORWICH FESTIVAL OCTOBER 12,1999

Taking place in Norwich in the beautiful region of England's East Anglia, the NORFOLK & NORWICH FESTIVAL is one of the oldest and most prestigious regional arts festivals taking place in the UK every year. It has commissioned or given first performances of many new and important works, in 1999 actually celebrating the Festival commissioning the wonderful 'SEA PICTURES' from EDWARD ELGAR exactly ONE HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE!

The 1999 festival had a wonderful diversity of artists including Julian Bream, Medici String Quartet, Terry Riley, Britten Sinfonia, Ellington Centenary Band, Russian State Philharmonic, Humphrey Littleton, and Black Dyke Band, whose leader JAMES WATSON was the stunning soloist on Michael Omer's EMMY AWARD WINNING television costume drama LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY. Click HERE later for a sound clip.

MICHAEL OMER's brass quintet PLAYING FOR TIME was commissioned by CHACONNE BRASS and written and completed in Tuscany in the late summer of 1999. Running some eight minutes, it is a piece which actually plays 'with' time, in that it runs at exactly the same pulse throughout, but has many different changes of pace which the composer employs as a constructive control mechanism from within. This makes for "some unusual and sometimes tricky rhythms on the page, which then make perfect sense to the ear."

Whilst Michael has scored much for brass in his commercial television and film work (BBCTV's PRINCE & THE PAUPER being a case in point), this is his first major concert-hall piece since the haunting TO THE STARS...a requiem for the Space Shuttle 'Challenger', which commemorated the shuttle crew that perished at launch in January 1986: this was a commission from LOCKE BRASS for their 21st anniversary at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank, and conducted by JAMES STOBART.

1999 has been quite an active year in the concert hall for Michael, seeing as it did, the world premiere of another major work - MOVING AS THE RESTLESS SPHERES - a violin concerto written for the talented Hannah Dawson, and performed at London's St John Smith Square in April 1999.

Michael Omer - a long-time member of the British Academy of Composers

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