Aleppo

Four previous releases on BIS have all featured John Pickards music for large orchestra or, in the case of the Gaia Symphony (BIS-2061), large brass band. This new album, on the other hand, presents scorings ranging from a solo oboe to a chamber ensemble of eight players. The seven works cover just over 30 years; the earliest one, Serenata Concertata, was Pickards first paid commission written at the age of twenty. In his liner notes, Pickard notes that he has an aversion to repeating himself: so each new work tends to be a reaction against the character, structure and technique of the previous one The result has been a body of work with a wide expressive range and this disc gives some indication of that.