Donemus Webwinkel — Clarke, Symon

As a student Symon Clarke composed music for string orchestra, quartets for the Medici String Quartet and a large-scale orchestral work to a commission from the Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra, entitled The Place of the Solitaires, which was performed to critical acclaim at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon in 1980.

He won first prize in the Greater London Arts Association’s Young Composers Competition in 1981 with a piece for clarinet and piano. The success of these works led to further commissions and performances; for example, Ouvrage en Mosaïque for solo piano (Andrew Ball), Perihelion for Lontano, Cepheid Variables for Divertimenti, Metoikos for the Gabrielli Brass Ensemble (featuring soloists Mary King and Jane Manning) and String Quartet No 1 for the Brindisi String Quartet.

During the 1990’s Clarke concentrated on studying, playing and composing for the Javanese Gamelan working with several performing ensembles as composer, conductor and performer. He has composed many innovative and successful pieces for these unique instruments attracting wide critical acclaim, for example; the song cycle The Dissolving Tree (with Mary King) performed at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and The Magic Mirror performed in many places including the BBC Broadcasting House in Manchester, the Purcell Room in London and elsewhere in Germany and The Netherlands.

He composed a ballet for the ColourScape Festival combining flute and electro-acoustic sounds with the gamelan and also made successful arrangements for gamelan of two classic American compositions; The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives and Short Ride in a Fast Machine by John Adams. The latter has been performed and broadcast in versions for both Javanese and Balinese gamelan in concerts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (Maida Vale), the London Symphony Orchestra (The Barbican and LSO St Lukes) and the Philippines Philharmonic Orchestra (Petronas Concert Hall, Kuala Lumper).

In the late 90’s he composed two pieces for the Dutch group Ensemble Multifoon, using gamelan instruments in western tuning; Earth Songs with mezzo-soprano Kristina Fuchs and clarinet and Echo’s Bones featuring violin and clarinet.

Several pieces for the South Bank Gamelan Players and Alpha Beta Gamelan (Bonang Spiritual, Fugitive Pieces and Bone Shadows) have been performed to acclaim in Rhythm Sticks Festival at London’s South Bank Centre, the Bridgewater Hall and BBC Broadcasting House in Manchester, and on tour in The Netherlands, France (Cité de la Musique de Paris) and Germany. Two further works, Landscape with Haiku and Strange Attractor were recorded and released by Alpha Beta Gamelan on CD in 1998.

Since 2001 Clarke has returned to composing for ‘western’ instruments and notable works include Midnight Verses, for clarinet and marimba for the virtuoso Tara Bouman and percussionist Stephan Froleyks, which has been played several times to acclaim in Germany and The Netherlands. A percussion quartet, entitled Endgame, was premiered in Germany by Klangwerk Münster in 2005.

A song cycle, Time’s Eye, setting texts by Paul Celan for soprano and three instruments was performed by the Concorde Ensemble with Tine Verbeke in the Samuel Beckett Festival in Dublin in 2006.

His large-scale orchestral work, Statue Circle, was performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by James MacMillan in 2006 and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 the following year. The quintet Dimensions of the Present Moment was performed by the Chromatico Ensemble in the Notting Hill Festival in 2009.

Nine Sonnets in Memory of John Clare for violin and piano was performed by Beth Spendlove and Nigel Clayton in Colchester in 2014 and String Quartet No 3 was played by the Kingfisher Quartet in Colchester and Halesworth (Suffolk) the same year. The Kingfisher Ensemble also gave the first performance of Threnodia in Suffolk at a concert to mark the anniversary of the start of the First World War.

The large scale orchestral work Three Orbits was performed and recorded by the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra under Mikel Toms and was released in 2015.

A major piece for chamber orchestra, Pour Finir Encore (highly recommended in the International Uuno Klami Composition Competition in Finland and shortlisted by Sound and Music in 2009) has also recently been recorded by the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra under Mikel Toms and was released in 2016. The disc also includes premiere recordings of Galileo’s Dream (octet), Dead Voices (twelve solo strings) and Silentium (full orchestra).

He composed a series of duos for stringed instruments and ‘... if not, winter ...’ (viola/cello) was premiered at the William Alwyn Festival in Suffolk in 2015. This work, and the other three works in the series, Shadow Songs (violin/cello), In the Circle of the White Moon (two violins) and The Brightness of Shadows (violin/viola), were played and recorded alongside Threnodia and Dimensions of the Present Moment by players from the Brno Philharmonic; the album was released in 2017.

A disc of three song cycles, written between 2003 and 2017 with Natalie Raybould (soprano) and players from the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra under Mikel Toms was released in 2020 and includes Secret Diversion, Time’s Eye and Requiem.

His latest recording is of the Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra with Alexander Baillie and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Mikel Toms. The disc is paired with a remastered copy of the 2015 recording of Three Orbits with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra and Mikel Toms. This disc has received rave reviews:

“… this is an extraordinary CD that belongs in the collection of everyone interested in classical music's future.” Mark Gabrish Conlan

“… heart-stoppingly beautiful.” Colin Clarke

A new piece for Violoncello and Piano, commissioned by Alexander Baillie and entitled The Solitude of Cataracts, is due for performance in 2026.

His music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in Music of our Time, Hear and Now, Late Junction and World Music Week, on RTI in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe and Asia. All his music is now published by Donemus.