Notes from the Undergrowth

Aim: We are fundraising to record 'Notes from the Undergrowth' - an eclectic programme of piano miniatures exploring day and night in the forest.

This solo programme will be recorded by independent classical label Deux-Elles, and includes three new commissions. Deux-Elles is putting in £6,000 to cover the cost of recording and production. We're raising money for the cost of studio hire at the wonderful Old Granary Studio in Beccles, for CD printing, and to pay the composers and performer. We're hoping to record in September, with the album released in May 2026. 

About the programme

The movement to rediscover historic women’s music in recent years has often emphasised the tragedy of overlooked and wasted talent. But what has struck me as I’ve delved further into this repertoire is how many women were successful and well-known within their lifetimes. As composers and performers, they were fully part of the ‘ecosystem’ of classical music, influencing its direction and with complex and mutual relationships to its now better-known figures. Historic audiences, with all their biases, still knew a good thing when they heard it. The greater problem for women seems to have often been posthumous: that when they could no longer perform and champion their own music, the gatekeepers of the classical canon quietly weeded them out. With the ‘undergrowth’ cut back, the greats could appear to stand alone, as isolated geniuses whose originality was central to their image. 

The seed of an idea for this programme started with a fundraising concert a couple of years ago for a new community orchard, for which I put together a series of miniatures evoking trees, birds and insects. As I played with different arrangements of well-known and more obscure pieces, it struck me that the concept of an ecosystem might link the worlds of ecology and music in interesting ways. An ecosystem is a network of relationships between different organisms where nothing stands alone: the visible and familiar exists always in relationship to more mysterious and hidden processes and organisms. In this recording, rather than simply championing a few specific composers, I am aiming to explore the ‘undergrowth’: to pay attention to the small, the unusual or the overlooked – both musically and ecologically. This has meant commissioning 3 new works to fill some gaps in the piano repertoire for species that might be initially less musically suggestive, such as mushrooms and slime mould! Through the ordering of these very disparate pieces, I’ve tried to create a dialogue between them, with the movement from day into night bringing a larger narrative arc to the programme.

Programme

Leoš Janáček - On an overgrown path book 2 no. 1 

Fannie Charles Dillon - Birds at Dawn

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Le rappel des oiseaux / The call of the birds

Olivier Messiaen - La colombe / The dove

Amy Beach - Young birches

Amy Beach - A hummingbird

Marion Bauer - White Birches 

Dora Pejáčević - Blütenwirbel / A whirl of blossoms

Béla Bartók - From the diary of a fly 

Joshua Borin - Grex (*new commission)

Leoš Janáček - A blown-away leaf

Dora Pejáčević - Papillon / Butterfly

Mel Bonis - Il pleut / It is raining

Margrit Schenker - Chinesischer Kirschbaum / Chinese Cherry Tree

Robert Schumann - Vogel als Prophet / The bird as prophet

François Couperin - Les ombres errantes / Wandering shadows

Maki Gajic Murata - Fireflies (*new commission)

Emahoy Tsegue Mariam Guebrou - Evening Breeze 

Mel Bonis - Au crépuscule

Maurice Ravel - Noctuelles / Night moths

Timothy Salter - Midnight Mushrooms (*new commission)

François Couperin - Le rossignol en amour / The nightingale in love

Margrit Schenker- Palme mit Schnee / Palm with snow

Dora Pejáčević - Nocturne 

Biographies

Pianist Hannah Watson Emmrich’s performances have included recitals at the Barbican, St Martin-in-the-Fields, LSO St Luke’s, Cardiff’s St David’s Hall, Sinfonia Smith Square and the Royal Festival Hall, as well as performances on Radio 3’s In Tune and Afternoon on 3, and a scene in The Lady in the Van. She read Modern Languages at Cambridge before studying for a piano Masters and Artist Diploma at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, taught by Martin Roscoe and Caroline Palmer. Her studies were funded by Help Musicians and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, amongst others.

From 2017-21, she worked as Music Director at the Anglican Cathedral in Nairobi, while continuing to perform. She also taught and mentored several teenagers, two of whom are now studying at conservatoires abroad. She maintains an ongoing link with music in Kenya and returned earlier this year with violist Luba Tunnicliffe for a series of masterclasses and concerts including Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto with the Nairobi Orchestra. Alongside her performing work, she is currently musical director for St Anselm’s church Kennington and Norwich chamber choir Sine Nomine.  

For more details, upcoming concerts and recordings, as well as a full recital-length version of this programme, visit www.hannahwatsonemmrich.com. 

Joshua Borin read music at Clare College, Cambridge, studying composition with Robin Holloway and Jeremy Thurlow, and continued his studies under the tutelage of Julian Philips and Julian Anderson at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he was a Leverhulme Arts Scholar and was also generously supported by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the RVW Trust.

He has written major commissions for Vienna Philharmonic trombonist and ARD Competition Winner Michael Buchanan, and after winning the Galliard Ensemble’s 20th anniversary composition competition was commissioned to write a new work for the group. His song Nature is Returning, commissioned by BBC New Generation Artist Helen Charlston, was selected by Martin Handley as his pick for Radio 3’s programme “New Year, New Music”. Joshua’s works have been performed in major venues including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall, Barbican Hall and Westminster Abbey, at festivals around the UK and abroad, and broadcast on UK and Netherlands radio.

Grex, his new commission for this recording, takes its inspiration from the extraordinary behaviours displayed by slime moulds. Complex and rapidly-changing small-scale activity provides the impetus for slower, larger-scale motion, as materials and ideas combine to reach a common goal.

In 2021, Maki Gajic Murata received her Bachelor’s in Music with first class honours from the University of Birmingham. Since then, she has been appointed as Composer in Residence at a leading school in London. Currently, she is in her second year in her Master’s in Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is a very grateful financial award holder. Maki has studied under the tutorage of Daria Kwiatkowska, Michael Zev Gordon, and Hollie Harding.

Recently, Maki has written pieces for professional ensembles such as Plus Minus and Exaudi as well as other professional and amateur groups and soloists. Commissions this year include: a saxophone concerto as a side by side with the Gloucestershire Youth Wind Band, an orchestral piece for the GSMD Symphony Orchestra, and an acapella piece for the newly formed Gaia Singers.

Maki is very passionate about writing contemporary music for amateur musicians and sharing her love for music in schools. When she isn’t composing, Maki is also a freelance accompanist, conductor, singer and enthusiastic educator. 

Timothy Salter is a composer, conductor and pianist, whose works include instrumental, chamber and orchestral music, choral music and songs. He was born in Yorkshire and read music at St. John’s College, Cambridge. His numerous public and private commissions comprise concert music in many genres but also include incidental music for television. His compositions appear on several recording labels and have been broadcast throughout the world. As a pianist he performs with singers and instrumentalists in Britain and overseas.

He is musical director of The Ionian Singers, with whom he records and performs internationally. He is a strong advocate of the composer-performer, believing that executant experience has an invaluable effect on composition. In pursuit of this he has written a substantial body of choral works and works including chorus, and much of his wide-ranging instrumental music has been written for colleague performers.

For many years he taught composition and performance studies at the Royal College of Music, London. As a composer and performer he has considerable experience in working with musicians, student and professional, on the performance of contemporary music. In 1995 he founded Usk Recordings for the promulgation of new music and neglected works from the past.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 28th July 2025 at 8:17am