Commissioned Music

2018 Commission

The 2018 Commission is A Little Book of Proverbs, by David Knotts. In eight movements, from not letting cats out of bags, chasing wild geese to red herrings, it uses the full range of recorders. Each movement adds one more player so the first movement is for solo tenor, then the second for duet etc until the last movement is for eight.
A Little Book of Proverbs – Poster
Zero Gravity are giving the first performance at Corpus Christi Chapel, Cambridge on Sunday 24th June at 3pm.  Further details on the Concerts page.

2014 Commission

The 2014 commission is Quattuor Musicae, by Paul Max Edlin. Scored for treble, 2 tenors, bass, great and contra, this has four movements based on historical styles: In Nomine, Pavan, Aria and Hocket. You can watch extracts from the first performance, which was given by Zero Gravity on July 20th 2014.

You can download the score and parts of Quattuor Musicae here.

2012 Commission

In 2012, to celebrate the Society’s 75th birthday, Jonathan Dove wrote ‘Light-dance’ for recorder octet: sopranino, 2 x descants, treble, tenor, bass, great bass, contra bass.  The first performance was given in November 2012 by Zero Gravity in The Fitzwilliam College Auditorium, Cambridge.  The work is published by Peters Ed 72408

You can listen to Zero Gravity playing Light-dance here. The sound engineer was Matt Moore.

2011 Commissions

The 2011 SRP commission was divided between two young composers, both reading for a  Masters in Music. James Welland, aged 23, is at Cambridge and Dominic Irving, aged 24 is at Bristol.  James’ Lament is in 7 parts and Dominic’s Valse Chromatique is in 5. 

The music of Lament and Valse Chromatique is available for download here.

Here are videos of first performances  

Lament by James Welland

Valse Chromatique by Dominic Irving

2010 Commission

Thaw, a quartet by Jim Sutherland, was first performed at the National Festival in Felixstowe Suffolk, May 8th 2010.

Jim Sutherland is a Scottish composer, musician and producer. He has composed for film, television and  large-scale events with La Banda Europa, the True North Orchestra and Cold Weather Dancing.

Thaw is available for download here.

You can listen to Zero Gravity performing Thaw here. The sound engineer was Matt Moore.
There is a remixed version called Thawed Out, produced by Evelyn Nallen & Matt Moore, here.

2007 Commission

To encourage composers to write for recorder ensembles the Committee of the Society decided some time ago to seek a composer willing to write a commissioned piece. In 2007, through the good offices of Evelyn Nallen, Gavin Bryars agreed to write such a piece. The 6-part piece, called A Family Likeness, was finished in December 2008.

It received its world premier performance shortly afterwards by the group Zero Gravity, led by Evelyn Nallen, at a venue in Cambridge. You can hear, and watch, the performance on Youtube. The sheet music is available from Schotts in score (Schotts Ed 13240) and in parts (Ed 13240-10) www.schott-music.com or Email