Set To

Mark-Anthony Turnage is one of the most admired and widely performed composers of his generation. He studied with Oliver Knussen and John Lambert in London and Gunther Schuller in Tanglewood. His works skillfully blend classical and jazz idioms, modernism and tradition. Mark has composed under residencies/associations with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, English National Opera, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Conductors of Turnage's works include Simon Rattle, Andrew Davis, Vladimir Jurowski, Daniel Harding, Antonio Pappano, Andris Nelsons, Vassily Petrenko, Oliver Knussen and Leonard Slatkin. Mark has collaborated with jazz musicians John Scofield, Peter Erskine and Joe Lovano, soloists Christian Lindberg, Christian Tetzlaff, Marc-André Hamelin and Mark Padmore, and Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta and the Nash Ensemble. His music is recorded on the Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Chandos, LPO, BlackBox and Onyx labels (Above information sourced with gratitude from the Boosey & Hawkes website)

Set To is dedicated to London Brass.  It was commissioned by the Aldeburgh Foundation with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain and received its first performance on August 24th 1993 at the Maltings, Snape. Originally divided into two movements, a pensive and richly harmonic Blues and an aptly named Bacchanale full of violent mood changes, sometimes slow but mostly fast and furious.

“I remember playing the original brass ensemble version of Set To numerous times in the early nineties with London Brass and always wondered if the composer would consider writing something for Brass Band. As Director of The Guildhall Brass Band, a possible performance opportunity arose in 2010 and I successfully approached Mark and gained his permission to scale it up for brass band with added percussion parts. I conducted the premier of this new Brass Band version at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in February 2011 with the composer present and he liked it. Although very contemporary compared to most brass music, I feel that Mark's easily accessible style makes this rhythmically quirky and harmonically 'bluesy' work a really interesting concert piece, suitable for any occasion.” Chris Houlding