MARK SIMPSON : NIGHT MUSIC Leonard Elschenbroich cello - Alexei Grynyuk piano Mercury Quartet - Richard Uttley piano - Mark Simpson clarinet Ian Buckle piano - Víkingur Ólafsson piano - Nicholas Daniel oboe Guy Johnston cello - Ensemble 10/10 - Clark Rundell conductor Jonathan Small oboe NMC D225 • Debut Discs is a new series in collaboration with BA (Hons) Graphic Design students at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design. • The work of new designers showcased alongside the music of a younger generation of composers highlights the emerging talent and connections between the two arts forms. • The cover designs were exhibited at the series press launch event on 7 June. • The finals designs for the 12 releases in this series were selected by a judging panel including composer Colin Matthews, cover designer for 4AD Vaughan Oliver and Guardian/Radio 3 journalist Tom Service. • Debut Discs has the ambassadorial support of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. This recording of chamber music pieces by 27-year-old composer Mark Simpson features works spanning ten years. All are performed by the musicians and ensembles for whom they were originally written. Mark Simpson's works are most often inspired by dark tones and atmospheres of loss, dreams, hauntings, intimacy and passion and, as with Night Music and Echoes and Embers, often embrace ambiguities of emotion and attitude with extremes of quietude and agitation, of fragility and power. His pieces are also his own musical response to poetry (Sylvia Plath’s Ariel, Ted Hughes’ ‘Tales from Ovid’ for Windflower) or the mysteries and resonances of place (Barkham Fantasy whose genesis harks back to an eerie farmhouse on Dartmoor, and Nur Musik written during a stay in Berlin). TRACK LISTING 1. Night Music (2014)     15'05     Leonard Elschenbroich, cello & Alexel Grynyuk, piano 2. Ariel (2009)     13'14     Mercury Quartet 3. Barkham Fantasy (2009)     7'47     Richard Uttley piano 4. Echoes and Embers (2012)     11'10     Mark Simpson, clarinet & Vikingur Olafsson piano 5. Lov(escape) (2006)     3'46     Mark Simpson, clarinet & Ian Buckle, piano 6. Un Regalo (2004)     7'21     Guy Johnston, cello 7. Windflower (2013)     6'17     Nicholas Daniel oboe 8. Nur Musik (2008)     9'48     Jonathan Small, oboe ; Ensemble 10/10 ; Clark Rundell, conductor     Total timing     75'17 NMC Recordings are distributed in Australia by Rockian Trading, P.O.Box 44, Briar Hill, Vic, 3088, Australia Telephone (03) 9432 4149 ~ Facsimile (03) 9444 6879