CHRISTIAN DREW

AQUARIUM DRIFTER 2024
symphony orchestra [12’30”]

I. Freedive Gigue Lente (excerpt)


II. Rocococeanarium (excerpt)


III. Subtropicali Antiquarium (excerpt)


IV. Sunset Over the Super Sewer (excerpt)

“If the programme notes suggested we were going to get nothing but similar textures at greater length thereafter – the dreaded ‘sound world’ always suggests the triumph of atmosphere over substance – Christian Drew’s Aquarium Drifter offered an immediate corrective. Though Drew is fond of terms like “noodling” and “woozy”, there was a clear structure to this life aquatic, which took the shape of a continuous sinfonietta, and far from all the music of the past lying at the bottom of an iridescent lake, one particular neobaroque specimen seemed to break the surface in full sail. Bewitching and original “sound world”, too; the brass did Drew proud, and the woodwind managed to sound at times like a saxophone ensemble. I smiled from start to finish, and would happily have listened to the whole work again.” 
– David Nice, The Arts Desk

“Drew’s Aquarium Drifter lived up to its name. Sounds blurred and rippled like water, conjured by bending pitches, woozy glissandos and pizzicato droplets. There was a joy in its laid-back warmth and an appealing freshness to the orchestration” 
– Rebecca Franks, The Times

Read programme notes by Tim Rutherford-Johnson.

Commissioned for the London Symphony Orchestra through the LSO Discovery Panufnik Composers Scheme, supported by The Helen Hamlyn Trust.

MEDIUM SUMMER 2024
mixed ensemble [13’]

Medium Summer was put together intuitively and freely in the days surrounding midsummer, by playing around with the sounds, materials and instruments at arm's reach: baroque muzak, noodling folk, an EDM shoegaze jig etc.

Written for Music We’d Like to Hear.

First performed by Lara Agar, Maddie Ashman, Christian Drew, Francesca Fargion, Giacomo Fargion and Tim Parkinson at the MWLTH Summer Exhibition 2024.

MORE PARLOUR MUSIC 2022
solo piano [6’]

“...one of the most interesting solo piano pieces I’ve heard for a long time. Perhaps because it’s a kind of study, in which an ornamented and embellished, neo-baroque melodic line is played against accompanying chords from a different era and style. Christian Drew said the result was ‘like Chopin on acid’, but by the time both elements were in the lower range of the keyboard the effect was also reminiscent of Brahms’s thick chording. There’s more to it than a two-element experiment, though, as the ‘accompaniment’ at times becomes a melody element in itself and rhythmic structures are contrasted as if two different things are happening at once.”
– Robert Beale, The Arts Desk

More Parlour Music draws loosely on the sounds and performance practices of eighteenth and nineteenth century keyboard music. There are no direct quotations; instead I tried to let my subconscious warp and reimagine my own experiences of romantic harmony and baroque melody.  

Written for Benjamin Powell as part of Psappha Ensemble’s ‘Composing For Piano’ 2022.

BOBBY D 2021
violin, harmonium, two guitars, percussion and harmonicas [9’]

The title is an accidental pun on Laurence Crane’s Bobby J for electric guitar. I was chatting with Patrick Hegarty about putting the piece together and told him we might both have to muster up our best Bobby D impressions (aka Bob Dylan).

Written for Laurence Crane’s 60th birthday.

Performed by Lara Agar, Darius Paymai, Patrick Hegarty, Christian Drew and Harry Harrison at the Festival of Laurence Crane.

PARLOUR MUSIC 2021
solo harp [8’]

A sprawling amalgamation of rococo, folk and medieval music; senza misura, ornate, twangy, rolling. Described by Cara as ‘baroque harpsichord music on acid’.

Written for and first performed by Cara Dawson at a Malplaquet-Muse house concert in Berlin.

SEE SLOW BLUE 2020
clarinet, violin, cello and percussion [6’]

“See Slow Blue takes inspiration from the music of American indie rock band Yo La Tengo, conjuring their ‘lazy ambling slide guitars’ into a glorious, woozy hymn to slowing down.”
– Kate Wakeling, BBC Music Magazine

Performed by London Symphony Orchestra players and released on NMC’s digital album Six Degrees of Separation.

Read more about the piece on NMC’s Discover blog here.

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PINK ROOM 2020
open instrumentation [9’]

I've often looked out at two rooms in a derelict factory building outside my window. One is dimly lit with ambient orange lights, the other is lit by a bright pink fluorescent light. The orange room is lit almost all the time, but the pink room is only lit every now and again. I've never seen anyone in them. Soon the factory will be demolished to make space for new flats.

Orange Room and Pink Room were composed and recorded remotely across the national lockdowns in 2020-21. Both tracks started as a remote recording project with composer and violinist Lara Agar, and eventually turned into two scores that use different types of open and flexible notation. Pink Room was recorded in 2020, early on in the first lockdown, and served as a form of demo for Orange Room, which was recorded during the 2021 lockdown.

Performed by Lara Agar (violin), Jenny Akroyd (alto and soprano saxophone), Cara Dawson (harp), Christian Drew (accordion, guitar, harmonicas, kinder harp, percussion, piano), Abel Esbenshade (clarinet), Patrick Hegarty (guitar), Eden Lonsdale (cello, harmonium, percussion), Darius Paymai (harmonium, setar, percussion), Alex Tay (viola)

Download from Bandcamp here.

SHOEGAZE MEDIEVAL 2019
four instruments and audio [10’]

Shoegaze Medieval is based on the ballad Corps Feminin (c.1390) by the ars subtilior composer Solage, examining and reworking its materials within a loose and blurry context. All four instruments fulfil equal roles within the work’s surface, cycling through the song’s pitch material in loosely constructed canons, but with newly conceived rhythms and durations.

Commissioned by the Richmond Concert Society and first performed by W37 Saxophone Quartet.

JANGLE CONSORT 2019
guitar trio and audio [11’]

Jangle Consort is music about noodling and meandering; casual, lazy, private, as if improvised. A haphazard convergence of Scottish and English folk, consort, medieval, blues and appalachian music.

Comissioned by 840 Series for What Guitar Trio. First performed at 840: New Music for Guitar Trio.

LIDO 2019
percussion trio and audio [21’]

Lido began as a series of open and flexible scores that drew on the rondeau Fumeux Fume Par Fumee (c.1390) by the 14th-century French composer Solage as a form of source material. Slowly, over the course of a collaboration with percussionists Ben Clark and Antonin Granier, this fixed but still very loose assemblage of the piece came to the foreground, leaving most of the source material behind as a faint trace beneath the surface.

Performed by Ben Clark, Christian Drew and Antonin Granier.