Works in Progress

Collaboration with UK musicians

Collaboration with UK musicians

I was commissioned in 2007 to create a new composition for a chamber group of the London Mozart Players, , folk, and other musicians from various genres. These collaborations were cultural and musical, very often shared publicly through performances in local venues, discussion groups and other outreach activities based in small community-settings and schools. The new project will allow me take an important professional step forward in realizing my artistic goals by building on the insights, connections, relationships, and challenges that I experienced while in England.

The greatest challenges I experienced in England were because of the profound differences in our approaches to music making and playing. For me, musical composition is a structured process but emerges as a spontaneous expression of heart and spirit, and is built on musical skills based on listening and practice. I don’t read music or think in terms of keys and scales. Likewise, the classical musicians (most especially) with whom I worked faced an extreme challenge playing my music because of their more structured approach. Yet, I feel deeply inspired about the potentials of creating new music that is a creative fusion of our approaches and skills.

I’m currently working on creating a new composition which is tentatively entitled, “Concerto for Native Flute.” My more immediate goal is to bring David Juritz, a classical violinist from England, here to the United States to work with me on finishing the new composition, as part of a larger goal of using our dialogue of different musical genres to generate dialogues about cross-cultural relationships and collaboration.

To contact Hawk ~ hawkhenries@hotmail.com~ (207) 460-2203
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