Email this composer jolyonlaycock@hotmail.com
01761 490378
www.rainbowtrack.co.uk

1 Paradise Row, Woollard,
Pensford, Bristol,
BS39 4HY.

SCA TREASURER - Dr. Jolyon Laycock - Composer, pianist, poet, teacher, lecturer, music animateur, researcher. Born in Bath in 1946; Studied for B.Mus and M.Phil in composition at the University of Nottingham under Ivor Keys and Arnold Whittall. Additional composition studies with Roger Smalley, Pierre Marietan, Michel Decoust, Henri Pousseur and Cornelius Cardew. During the 1970s pursued a freelance career as an experimental sound artist based at the Birmingham Arts Laboratory, and Spectro Arts Workshop in Newcastle on Tyne, presenting work in galleries and arts centres in the UK and Europe. In 1979 took up the post of Music and Dance Co-ordinator at the Arnolfini in Bristol, running a programme of contemporary music and dance regarded as one of the most innovative outside London. In 1990 took up the post of Concert Director at the University of Bath and at the newly opened Michael Tippett Centre at Bath Spa University College and founded the award-winning concert series “Rainbow over Bath”. In 1996, initiated the programme “Rainbow across Europe”, funded by the European Kaleidoscope Fund. This collaborative network of concert promoters and educational institutions in several European cities in France, Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Austria was described by Gillian Perkins as a ground breaking initiative which took British techniques of “creative music making into European classrooms in several countries at once”. Left the University of Bath in 2000 to concentrate on the completion of doctoral thesis: “Rather Special People - a changing role for the composer in society” (University of York). Founded the Rainbow Foundation in 2001 to carry on and develop the work in creative music-making in an international context initiated by “Rainbow over Bath”. A CD of my Instrumental and choral music is available from the Rainbow Foundation. It features the following performances: “A Dream of Flying”; Rainbow International Ensemble, conductor Roger Heaton; “Edgar the King”; Eclectic Voices and Western Sinfonia, conductor Scott Stroman; “Mengjiang Weeping at the Wall”; UK Chinese Ensemble, Rainbow International Ensemble, junior school children from Corsham and members of Corsham Choral Society, conductor Nicholas Keyworth.


The SCA online database currently lists 14 scores by Jolyon Laycock.

Title	Year	Instrumentation	Mins	Other Information	Audio	View score	Publ.
A Dream of Flying	1995	Clarinet, Basson, Horn, Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, Double bass	21-30	The dreamer is Bladud of Bath who made wings for himself, but died in an attempt to fly from the roof of the temple of Apollo at Trinovantium.	listen	N/A
Among Seven Hills	2009	Piano and orchestra	30+	Provisional first performance 14 April 2010 Emerald Ensemble	N/A	view score
Bickley Mill	2009	Piano	3	One of a set of 12 studies for solo piano. It is named after a famous beauty spot on the river Exe in Devon. The piece is fractal in structure but takes as a textural model Chopin's Study no.1 op.25 in A flat major, popularly known as "The Harp"	N/A	view score
Cap Blanc	2007	Piano	4	One of a continuing set of piano studies. It is named after the frieze of life-size horses carved in the rock shelter at Cap Blanc, one of the pre-historic sites of cave art on the Dordogne region of France.	N/A	view score
Die! A1 Sparrow	2002	Two pianos	11-15	Released on CD Dunelm DRD0243, SCA	listen	N/A
Durdle Door	2009	Piano	3	One of a set of piano studies exploring compositional as well as pianistic techniques. Named after a rock formation on the Dorset coast, Durdle Door was inspired by Chopin's Etude in C minor, Op.12 no.2 known as the "Revolutionary Study". Rapid right-hand sextuplet semiquavers accompany rhetorical fragments in the middle register.	N/A	view score
Edgar the King	1994	SATB soloists, Choir & Orchestra	21-30	A setting of 3 poems from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle commissioned by the Diocese of Bath & Wells for the Bishop Ken celebrations 1996. First performed Bath Abbey 20/04/1996; Eclectic Voices, Western Sinfonia, under Scott Stroman, with Joelle Davis (sop) Keiron Cooke (alto), Nicholas Thorne (tenor) Niall Hoskins (baritone)	N/A	N/A
High Wood	1988	Oboe	11-15	First performed by Robin Canter at the Michael Tippett Centre, Bath 27/02/1991. The title has a double meaning. It is a literal translation of the French "haut bois" but also refers to an area of woodland near my home where most of the piece was composed.	listen	N/A
L'Abri Pataud	1994	Piano	4	Released on CD Dunelm DRD0238, SCA. One of a continuing set of piano studies. It is named after the prehistoric rock shelter at Les Eyzies in the Dordogne region of France where a prehistoric burial was found.	N/A	N/A
Pavey's Ladder	2009	Piano	3	one of a set of piano studies exploring compositional as well and pianistic technique. Named after the flight of stone steps at Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, it is based on fractal principles. A 6-note group controls all levels of the piece: the shape of melodic phrases, the sequence of paragraphs and the main structural sections.	N/A	view score
Penniless Porch	2009	Piano	3	One of a set of piano studies exploring compoisitional as well as pianistic technique. Named after a porch near Wells Cathedral built by Bishop Bekynton, the piece is a kind of clumping dance in which two opposing layers of close-position chords are set against one another.	N/A	view score
Rowberrow Warren	2009	Piano	4	One of a set of 12 studies exploring compositional as well as pianistic technique. Rowberrow Warren is named after an iron-age hill-fort on the Mendip Hills in Somerset.	N/A	view score
Steady State	2009	Piano	2	One of a set of piano studies exploring compositional as well pianistic technique. It is named after a now discredited cosmological theory propogated by Fred Hoyle and others. The piece is fractal in structure. A sequence of chords of varying colours unfolds in a continually evolving rhythmic pattern.	N/A	view score
Warren's Waltz	2008	flute, clarinet, viola, cello, piano	7-8	Written in celebration of the 80th birthday of Raymond Warren. This short quintet is based on a cipher of Raymond's full name using German notation: ADHECHAESAE.	N/A	view score