Meet the composer: Isabella Gellis
Isabella’s work Rusty Swan Neck Moss for solo cello, will receive its premiere at our upcoming Jacqueline du Pré concert at Wigmore Hall, performed by Adrian Brendel. Find out more about her beginnings as a composer and her process for creating works.
Photo by Ella Pavildes
What first interested you in becoming a composer?
Composing wasn’t necessarily something I was doing from an early age, but I grew up playing the piano and violin, and the more music I had exposure to, the more I became interested in trying to make things for myself. I'd expressed some interest in composing to my piano teacher, Nadia Lasserson, who I owe a lot to because she then suggested I write a piece for her multi-hand piano group, which featured eight hands and one piano. The piece was for an upcoming intercollegiate piano competition, and as one of the winners, we performed it at Wigmore Hall. That was the first time I'd really worked on something to be played by other people - I was 17. Very shortly after, I applied to study composition at the Royal Academy of Music.
You have created works for a huge variety of instruments and settings throughout your career. What types of music do you enjoy returning to most often?
Honestly, I get really sucked into whatever I'm working on at that moment, which can make it difficult to work on multiple things at once because I tend to get completely obsessed with the form I'm working in at the time. The exception being this piece for Adrian actually, which I have written alongside a commission for the London Symphony Orchestra. That's been quite fun, given the huge difference in scale.
But I'd like to do more of everything. I love writing opera, I love working with text, but I have no background as a singer, so I've enjoyed that as something of an outsider with minimal preconceptions. Whereas when I'm writing anything that's chamber music or orchestral or involving instruments that I grew up playing, it feels like a homecoming, in a way, in that I really feel like I have a lot I want to do in those forms.
I love knowing that in my life I will never exhaust the possibilities of what can be musically done. There are a thousand solo cello pieces that I could write if I had the time, but this one for Adrian is the one I happen to have written this time.
How does knowing the performer and the venue for the premiere of a work affect the creative process?
It's vitally important. It's almost as important as the instrument. Who you are writing it for and where it is being played, it really affects what I might write. The joy of working with someone you already know, as in the case of Adrian, is that it’s another opportunity to look at one more of those endless possibilities. It's quite freeing as well, so I was able to put things in the score that were almost shorthand for techniques that first time working with him, I needed to explain, but this time we have this understanding. I've been able to build my own library of sounds that Adrian already has experience of, so we're able to push the piece further.
Wigmore Hall is also a really special place to me. Aside, from playing my first proper there, I also worked there for a few years during my undergrad; turning pages, moving pianos around, front of house, backstage. I've spent a lot of time within that acoustic, so when I know I’m writing for the hall it’s very exciting. I'm naturally drawn to these close, delicate and subtle sounds, and knowing that they will actually be heard as intended, is a real treat. Every seat is a good seat.
Can you tell us a bit more about the work Adrian will be performing?
The first piece I worked on with Adrian was three years ago, also at Wigmore Hall, called Lurid Cupola Moss. It took its name from a species of moss native to the UK, but was used more poetically, as the piece explored the acoustics of the Wigmore Hall cupola, with Adrian sitting directly under the star.
This piece, Rusty Swan Neck Moss, is continuing this thought process. Similarly, it's not a piece that's a literal depiction of moss, it's more about focusing on subtleties on the small scale, and how the sound might cling to the building, whilst also taking inspiration from the name itself. “Rusty Swan Neck Moss” really struck me in how it is basically a description of the cello. Both in colour, and the neck being so prominent, then also the fact that the cello already has a really strong musical association with swans.
I have a cello at home, so I can experiment with the instrument and I think a lot of the writing of this piece was driven in a very tactile way by that experimentation. I like having a good period of time making sounds and being with the instrument.
Putting the rust and the roughness with the softness of the swan neck is what this piece is about, using the harmonic spectrum of the cello to explore this. As such, the piece has two distinct personalities within it, one that is quite timid, and the other than be quite abrasive. My music can have very different sides, often within the same piece.
Find out more about Isabella at her website isabellagellis.com
Her next moss piece, Many Fruited Dog Tooth, will premiere at Wigmore Hall on 8 July with 12 Ensemble