https://robinhaigh.com Robin Haigh Wed, 04 Jun 2025 11:07:13 +0000 https://robinhaigh.com en http://robinhaigh.com/TFsounds Wed, 04 Jun 2025 11:07:13 +0000 Robin Haigh 457055 KEYBOARD:bar 1 bar 111 bar 263 bar 488ELECTRIC GUITAR: bar 1 bar 57 bar 92 bar 106 bar 199 bar 287 bar 367 bar 473 bar 487 bar 507 KEYBOARD:bar 1 bar 111 bar 263 bar 488ELECTRIC GUITAR: bar 1 bar 57 bar 92 bar 106 bar 199 bar 287 bar 367 bar 473 bar 487 bar 507 http://robinhaigh.com/LUCK Thu, 20 Jun 2024 08:05:38 +0000 Robin Haigh 453466 home     works     events     contact     bioLUCK: Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra - 2024 - 25’2.2.2.2 - 2.2.2.0 - timp - solo tpt - strings LUCK was co-commissioned by Britten Pears Arts and the Ulster Orchestra for soloist Matilda Lloyd.perusal score - buy score - hire score and parts Luck is a concept with diverse cosmic manifestations: from stumbling upon a modest banknote in a dimly lit alley to being born into a wealthy family; from catching the last train to knowing the right person to advance your career. For composer Robin Haigh, the greatest stroke of fortune was the recent birth of his daughter Marnie. Commemorating this celestial life event is LUCK—a five-movement trumpet concerto that takes the form of a free-floating fantasy where orchestral instruments emulate electronic ones. Following Haigh’s two previous concerti—THE DREAMERS (2022) for four trombones and sixteen players and Concerto for Orchestra (2023)—LUCK marks his first concerto in the traditional setup, featuring a single soloist accompanied by an orchestra. With high-pitched strings reminiscent of disco music and microtonally gliding brass and woodwinds evoking detuned synths from a retro video game, LUCK’s first movement begins with a spark of nostalgia for bygone times. Halfway through, the polished gloss fades away and a buoyant jig takes hold. Yet, the nostalgia still lingers—this time for the orchestral light music of mid-century BBC radio shows. The second movement opens with wailing woodwinds and trombones, deflating microtonally with each breath, like bouquets of sad balloons. Together with them, string chords rock back and forth, repeating obsessively. Similar to Ravel’s Boléro written almost a century earlier, the overall intensity grows, though in ways that feel unpredictable. Nothing can rob the music of its bittersweet and melancholic atmosphere. The trumpet takes centre stage in the short third movement: a jubilant, swirling melody whizzes up and down, while the orchestra tries to appease the soloist. The trumpet makes ample use of alternate fingerings—a technique employed consistently throughout the piece to trill on the same note. The movement also features a brief return to the same style of light music heard earlier, evoking a childlike and carefree spirit. In 1976, Stevie Wonder wrote Isn’t She Lovely to celebrate the birth of his daughter Aisha Morris. While never heard directly on the music's surface, the harmonic character of the song is infused into the chords of the fourth movement: it is still and serene, radiating outwards with quiet joy. The music flows directly into the last movement, which opens with sparse, majestic string chords: the texture gradually thickens as all kinds of extra melodies creep in around them. The composer himself describes the finale as ‘being like a Netflix-drama version of classical music—grand, but squeezed into a pop music sensibility.’ Previous ingredients—wandering arpeggios, high strings, rhythmic grooves, fuzzy gliding chords—all come together to plunge us into an energetic conclusion. While LUCK might not bring you any fortune, it is an important reminder to celebrate life's cherished moments through nostalgia, jubilation and serenity. - Marat Ingeldeev home     works     events     contact     bioLUCK: Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra - 2024 - 25’2.2.2.2 -... http://robinhaigh.com/Concerto-for-Orchestra Sat, 16 Sep 2023 17:17:52 +0000 Robin Haigh 447937 home     works     events     contact     bioConcerto for Orchestra- 2023 - 15’2.2.2.2 - 2.2.3.0 - cel - 1perc* - timp - strings *Drum kit, woodblock, triangle, four drinks glasses tuned with water Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned by Yoel Gamzou and oneMusic Orchestra for Beethovenfest Bonn 2023.perusal score - buy score - hire score and parts Never judge a book by its cover—or, for that matter, a musical work. In Robin Haigh’s Concerto for Orchestra, composed in 2023, the opening bars might evoke an unused instrumental from the flamboyant comedy film Barbie, with the strings repeating a groovy, saccharine riff. But by the grand and lush finale, the music feels more suited to the solemn world of the historical drama Oppenheimer. Both films were released on the same date in 2023, adding a twist to the narrative as audiences came to see them not as rivals but as a yin-yang of cinematic experiences. The sentimental and cerebral, exaggerated and understated, kitsch and classy fused into the intense cultural amalgamation playfully referred to as Barbenheimer. It is precisely this duality—or rather, oscillation—that lies at the heart of Haigh’s music. It swings quietly between wry sarcasm and a disarming sincerity, between cheap buffoonery and heightened melodrama. As a prime representative of what I’ve previously, half-jokingly, dubbed the British School of Emotionalism and Metamodernism (BSEM), the sentiments that Concerto for Orchestra elicit are full of ambiguities. Perhaps they simply reflect the world of the 2020s, with its crumbling foundations, lack of truth and subconscious desire for the ‘big Other’ to fix things for us. Haigh’s compositional embellishments (microtonal bending, undulating glissandi and ricocheting bows) offer little stability either. In this way, the hazy, faintly unnerving soundworld of Concerto for Orchestra feels perfectly at home in our early 21st-century environment. Back to the first movement: after the opening jaunty riff collapses under its own saccharine excess, a wailing melody emerges and begins to leap from one string instrument to another. Yet something feels off, perhaps prompting the original riff to make a brief return. From here, we enter the dreamland of the second movement, transporting us to the safest haven of all: childhood. The twinkling celesta, quavering woodwinds and howling brass paint a picture of longing for a time that, for most listeners, occurred before the 21st century (a wistful aesthetic that Haigh has identified as ‘millennial nostalgia’ in writings about his own work). Like an insistent alarm whose gradual increase in volume is both inevitable and relentless, the drum kit builds agitation, accelerating the moment we wake up, with no hope of falling back to sleep. A solitary horn introduces the third and final movement. The riff from earlier attempts to creep in, but it is a new day, and yesterday is gone. Haigh’s closing message seems to be that beauty will prevail no matter how messy and chaotic things are, for disorder, too, is a fruitful soil. Concerto for Orchestra was originally commissioned by oneMusic Orchestra, who premiered the work with conductor Yoel Gamzou at Beethovenfest Bonn in September 2023. - Marat Ingeldeev home     works     events     contact     bioConcerto for Orchestra- 2023 - 15’2.2.2.2 - 2.2.3.0 - cel - 1perc*... http://robinhaigh.com/DRIFTWOOD Fri, 09 Jun 2023 13:08:12 +0000 Robin Haigh 444158 home     works     events     contact     bioDRIFTWOOD - 2023 - 3’for orchestra 3.3.3.3 - 4.3.3.1 - cel - 2perc* - harp - timp - strings *F# bass bell, bass drum, crotales, tubular bells, glockenspielperusal score - buy full score A private archival recording is available on request. Robin Haigh is drawn to materials and inspirations that are corny, abject, perhaps even a little vulgar. In previous pieces he has pursued an expression of ‘millennial nostalgia’, an emotional oscillation between ‘transcendental elation and disengaged ennui’. DRIFTWOOD moves beyond these specific concerns but shares similar aesthetic ground. Its setting is the beach – or, more precisely, the sort of beach found in luxury advertising, on calypso records, or possibly in James Bond films. The beach as Hawaiian guitars and lurid drinks with cocktail umbrellas. But if this suggests simple tropicalia, Haigh has other ideas. This is the beach of The White Lotus, or Alex Garland’s 1996 novel: imagined, heavily mediated and with a dark underbelly. Ukuleles are evoked at the beginning but distorted via the medium of massed and detuned pizzicato effects; the oboe (and later other winds) makes an appearance as a kind of microtonal seagull; and plucked strings swell and recede in queasy rhythmic waves. Like driftwood, the listener is passively afloat – but also buffeted, displaced and at the mercy of much larger forces. ‘In Norse mythology the first humans were made of driftwood’, Haigh says of his inspirations. ‘Somehow this set my mind racing with the metaphor of the modern lives many of us experience as being somehow akin to living as a piece of driftwood, unable to control anything around us in a half-serene, half-anxious state of flux.’ - Tim Rutherford-Johnson home     works     events     contact     bioDRIFTWOOD - 2023 - 3’for orchestra 3.3.3.3 - 4.3.3.1 - cel - 2perc*... http://robinhaigh.com/NO-ONE-Volume-2 Wed, 10 May 2023 16:39:44 +0000 Robin Haigh 442582 home     works     events     contact     bioNO ONE: Volume 2 - 2022 - 5’For harpPremiered by Milana Zaric in 2023.NO ONE: Volume 2 was commissioned by Bangor Music Festival. NO ONE: VOLUME 2 acts as an expansion upon the three short pieces included in the 2020 harp work No One, originally commissioned by Presteigne Festival and performed by Oliver Wass. This new volume consists of a pair of miniatures labelled IV and V, which continue to explore the microtonal possibilities of the instrument, albeit through different means to the earlier set. The programme note for the 2020 work of which this new volume now forms a part is as follows: No one:Absolutely nobody: Literally not a single soul: Not one of the sheep:Nor a single cyclops:Nor Polyphemus:Not Odysseus:Nor his crew:Nor Homer:No one:Me:ROBIN HAIGH · NO ONE: Volume 2 home     works     events     contact     bioNO ONE: Volume 2 - 2022 - 5’For harpPremiered by Milana Zaric... http://robinhaigh.com/MORROW Wed, 10 May 2023 16:34:24 +0000 Robin Haigh 442581 home     works     events     contact     bioMORROW - 2022 - 6’For TouchKeys KeyboardPremiered by Willinger Duo in May of 2023. MORROW was commissioned by Zubin Kanga with the support of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Royal Holloway, University of London. It was premiered by Zubin Kanga on the 21st of April 2023 at Rich Mix in London. perusal score - buy score Upcoming British composer Robin Haigh's new piece MORROW exploited a new kind of keyboard, equipped with TouchKeys sensors, which allowed Kanga's minutest touch to vary the speed and microtonal inflections at which he played back repeated sampled piano sounds. Haigh based his composition in a traditional and deeply romantic harmonic language, but this was continually undermined by the echoing delays and subtly detuned elements, fully exploiting the range of speeds the sensors allowed to achieve a variety of polyrhythmic effects. Kanga delivered this performance with great sensitivity, allowing the beautifully resonant harmonies all the space they needed to create an expressive and delicate tracery of sounds. - Planet Hugill Robin Haigh's "MORROW" is full of simple melodic gestures and chordal ambiguities, wrapped in the 21st-century metamodern sentiment. It is produced by the expressive capabilities of a TouchKeys keyboard, creating an undeniable sense of melancholia and a longing for the harmony of the romantic composers. -AllAboutJazz Despite being entirely mechanical, the piano has a reputation as an instrument well suited to expressive, “human” performances. Keyboard players do not physically touch the sound-making part of the instrument, and therefore our understanding of their expressivity comes through their tiny variations in volume and rhythm. In writing MORROW, I was given the chance to rethink this. I was asked to write for a new sort of piano, a keyboard upon which the performer’s minutest touch can directly influence the sound, via an array of TouchKeys sensors. I chose to use this opportunity to have the fingers’ positions minutely control both volume and rhythm - those elements of pianism deemed so crucial for expressivity. A piano for the future, excessively enhanced and reconfigured, playing a sort of sad ballade. - Robin Haigh home     works     events     contact     bioMORROW - 2022 - 6’For TouchKeys KeyboardPremiered by Willinger... http://robinhaigh.com/RELIGIOSO Wed, 10 May 2023 16:30:57 +0000 Robin Haigh 442580 home     works     events     contact     bioRELIGIOSO - 2021 - 6’For clarinet in A and PianoPremiered by Willinger Duo in May of 2023.score (free) RELIGIOSO was written in memory of the composer Dmitri Smirnov, who passed away in 2020. Dmitri was my first composition teacher, with whom I studied from 2014-15, and I consider his lessons profoundly formative. He held an enormous reverence for the composers he considered “great”; primarily Bach, Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Webern. It is in that spirit that I approached this piece. home     works     events     contact     bioRELIGIOSO - 2021 - 6’For clarinet in A and PianoPremiered by... http://robinhaigh.com/THREE-LITTLE-MAMMOTHS Wed, 10 May 2023 16:28:23 +0000 Robin Haigh 442579 home     works     events     contact     bioTHREE LITTLE MAMMOTHS - 2021 - 30’For flute, cello, piano, and narrator.Commissioned by Marsyas Trio, to a text by Eoin McLaughlin perusal score - buy score home     works     events     contact     bioTHREE LITTLE MAMMOTHS - 2021 - 30’For flute, cello, piano, and... http://robinhaigh.com/Music-Copyist Tue, 14 Mar 2023 12:41:43 +0000 Robin Haigh 439820 home     works     events     contact     bio Music Copyist / Typesetter / EngraverIn addition to his work as a composer, Robin is a highly experienced music copyist based in London, having worked regularly as a freelancer since 2016, most often with Faber Music. Robin’s work has included creating full scores from written manuscript, preparing sibelius files for performance and sale, proofreading, creating and editing orchestral parts, arranging, and creating vocal scores.  Scores Robin has worked on have been found on music stands at the Royal Opera House, La Scala, The Berlin Phil, Shanghai Ballet, and countless other celebrated venues. contact: robinhaigh@gmail.com Previous projects: 2016 Fantasy for Strings, Jyotsna Srikanth - arrangement, transcription, score and parts 2017 Invictus: A Passion, Howard Goodall - score preparation, parts Powder Her Face Suite, Thomas Ades (renamed Luxury Suite) - typeset from manuscript, score and parts Quintet, Martin Sucking - score preparation, parts Chant Arragements, Sir Harrison Birtwistle - typeset from manuscript, score and parts 2018 Red Bird, Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian - score preparation, partsWind and Tree, Glen Downie -  typeset from manuscript 88 (No.1), Jonny Greenwood - score preparation Sonance for a New Space, Sir Harrison Birtwistle -  typeset from manuscript 2019Chaplin: The Tramp, Carl Davis - preparation of parts (partial)The Great Gatsby, Carl Davis - preparation of parts (partial) Inferno, Thomas Ades - typesetting from manuscript (partial) 2020 Architexture, Ambrose Field - score preparation 2022Two Nocturnes and a Maze, Tom Coult - preparation of score and parts Prelude (after Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe), Tom Coult - preparation of score and parts A Comedy of Errors, Matthew Hindson - proofreading of parts (partial)The Tempest, Thomas Ades - consolidating new set of parts (partial) 2023 Two Songs, Stephen Dodgson - proofreading and score preparationA Christmas Collection, Stephen Dodgson - proofreading and score preparation Four Poems of Mary Coleridge, Stephen Dodgson - proofreading and score preparation Home-bred Pictures, Stephen Dodgson - proofreading and score preparationTournament for 20 Fingers, Stephen Dodgson - proofreading and score preparation The Phantom of the Opera, Carl Davis - part preparation and proofreading (partial) The Sky Engine, Richard Peat - vocal score creation home     works     events     contact     bio Music Copyist / Typesetter / EngraverIn addition to his work as a... http://robinhaigh.com/HELL-HOT Tue, 08 Nov 2022 12:14:03 +0000 Robin Haigh 433233 home     works     events     contact     bioHELL HOT - 2022 - 6’For accordion and soprano saxophone HELL HOT was commissioned by Mikeleiz-Zucchi Duo with support from the Boas Trust and the Marchus Trust. perusal score   home     works     events     contact     bioHELL HOT - 2022 - 6’For accordion and soprano saxophone ...