So this became my central section.’ As the infection takes hold, timbral differences reveal themselves. ‘I discovered the death bite of an ant tends to happen around noon during the day, when the sun is at its strongest. Form flowed from research on the exact spread of the infection. Recently she’s turned her attention to the goings-on of the natural. The result is intense a music of the hospital ward. A stem grows a sack emerges a new set of parasitical spores explode into the air, floating towards their next victim. Bodily functions are to Shiori Usui what sonata form was to Haydn. The possessed ant sleepwalks to a leaf, bites one of the veins and dies. The fungus infects the ant, scrambles its brain and sends it packing down to the forest floor, where the parasite has a chance to take root and grow. In the dimly lit hall, sonic locations were obscure: a pair of bassoons and a trombone straining at the top of their registers a short scraping sound emanating from two or three places at once. The dead ant had a stem sticking out of its skull. This is the idea governing Shiori Usui’s from scratch, a piece whose unfolding drama struck hard at last year’s Tectonics Festival, in Glasgow. The inspiration for her latest work was an image of a dead ant that had succumbed to a fungal parasite, 'ophiocordyceps unilateralis s.l.', which she came across in a scientific journal.‘It was quite grotesque and shocking,’ she explains. Recently she’s turned her attention to the goings-on of the natural world, where processes can be even more bizarre. The result is intense – a music of the hospital ward. (BBC commission: World Premiere).īodily functions are to Shiori Usui what sonata form was to Haydn. Then I will also compose a piece for choir and brass next year.With Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, conducted by Franck Ollu. After this, I will be composing for a street orchestra, which consists of young musicians who play music outside the normal music venues, such as train stations, swimming pools, and care homes. I’m just finishing a composition for piano for four hands, which will be premiered on 28th June at Kettle’s Yard Gallery in Cambridge, UK. They are always very quick to respond, and provide you with very practical and helpful advice on promotion of works, some notating questions etc. They are an open, honest, passionate and highly dedicated group of people. Also, I feel that Ricordi is like a family. I live in Scotland, where a majority of people did not vote for Brexit (laughs), and it has provided me some great opportunities to connect with the music world in continental Europe. I would highly recommend to apply for it! What tips can you offer aspiring young composers toying with the idea of applying to RicordiLab? Your clarinet concerto concludes the three RicordiLab 2016 commissions. Described by 'The Times' as an entirely 'individual ear,' Shiori Usui was appointed as a young composer in residence by the BBC, SSO and Cove Park from Octob.

To me, “Pya-ryu” is an intimate, free-spirited and playful piece. What does the piece mean to you personally? In the programme booklet you deliberately leave the interpretation of Pya-ryu to the listener. I really love this kind of close collaboration with performers and I hope I will have many more opportunities to work like this in the future.

He also advised me for notating some new techniques from a performer’s point of view, which was very useful. I explained a number of different kinds of sound I wanted to use in the piece, and he experimented on his instrument based on my ideas. Accelerator - Shiori Usui Development day sharing with Shiori Usui - photo by Pamela Walker After working in the sensory theatre show Sound Symphony by Ellie Griffiths for autistic young people, I had begun to dream about creating my own sensory theatre for and with disabled young people. Visceral and corporeal, Usui has composed work based on. Usui’s compositions are often inspired by human anatomy, its physical gestures and involuntary reflexes, and by other living creatures and ecologies. What role has the soloist of the premiere played in the work’s creation? Shiori Usui (born 1981) composes works which incorporate elements from an expansive range of sources, from Bulgarian folk music to Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis, an insect-pathogenic fungus. However, the music is for orchestra and solo clarinet rather than a clarinet concerto. The commission provided me an opportunity to work closely with the clarinetist Alexander Muhr. What inspired you to compose a concerto for the clarinet?

Shiori usui