• The chamber choir Canticum (artists in residence at St Saviour's Church, Pimlico) have commissioned a new work from Simon with funds from the BBC's Choral Ambition project. The piece will be designed for the choir to perform with members of the congregation of St Saviour's and local children. The work will also feature a percussionist and an actress. The performances should take place towards the end of 2010.
  
  Simon is also working on a new piece for string quartet and three electric guitars to be performed at Kings Place later in the year, and Cassandra a piece for recorder and harpsichord which should round off the recording project that Simon has been working on for the last three years.
  
  

• Simon's music will be returning to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after an eight year gap. He has composed incidental music for the children's show Crabbit! The Musical which will be performed between the 7th and 31st of August at 12.15pm every day at The Gilded Balloon (13 Bristow Square). Tickets available from the Fringe Box Office.
  
  

• Simon had three substantial solo pieces featured in a concert by members of the ensemble Liquid Architecture in a wonderful concert at Lauderdale House, London on 03 April 2009. The concert contained excellent performances of works by Giacinto Scelsi, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Jonathan Harvey, and exciting world premieres by Bushra El-Turk and Christina Athinodourou.
  
  

• The cellist Jessica Burroughs gave a fabulous account of Simon's extremely demanding piece Prometheus (click here for mp3 of this performance). There was also a fine performance of Eros and Psyche by clarinettist Richard Russell and a spellbinding interpretation of Echo and Narcissus by pianist Helen Reid. This was the first of a series of upcoming concerts by the ensemble, for more information visit: www.myspace.com/liquidarch and I urge you to go and hear them play if you can. They are grrrrrrrreat.
  
  

• The Flackton Players, with Geoffrey Irwin (baroque viola) and Masumi Yamamoto (harpsichord), gave two superb performances in London venues in March 2009 of Pygmalion and Galatia a new work written for them by Simon during the winter months.
  
  

• Simon's new piece Escape was brilliantly performed by the Aris Wind Quintet on 27 November 2008.
  The work was the season's audience commission for the popular Music in the Village concert series, and was performed in the delightful setting of the ancient church of St Mary's in Walthamstow Village. Watch this website for news of further performances by the Aris Quintet, who really enjoyed performing the work.
  
  

• The first performance of Tributaries for professional and student string players was conducted by Simon Speare at the Strings and Things project held at the Purcell School in the first weekend in October 2008. The piece was commissioned by The Ensemble of London and the Purcell School and was performed by 150 musicians from the EOL, the Purcell School and schools around the UK and abroad. The standard of performer ranged from top professionals to Grade 1! The weekend also featured a performance by the Ensemble of London of a version for 9 string players of Simon's 2007 piece Yarn and Black Sails conducted by the composer.
  
  

• The British Clarinet Ensemble have included Jiggery-pokery Simon's piece for clarinet choir in their new CD of British music for clarinet choir to be released shortly. You can also hear a complete performance of the piece by clicking here.
  
  

• Corridor Sketches , a new piece for strings was performed at a concert to celebrate the work of Phil Barrett, the art teacher at the Purcell School on 30 June 2008 . The piece entailed the audience being led around the New Music Building while Simon directed 24 players placed in corridors, stairwells, doorways and adjacent rooms. The work is a preliminary sketch for a larger work related to rivers and tributaries to be performed by professional and student players in October.
  
  

• In May 2008 Steve Bingham (violin) and Chris Brannick (percussion) performed Abandoned Slatemine; Ghosts and Fiddler at King's Lynn Arts Centre, as part of a programme entitled "Skinned, Strung and Struck".
  
  

• A new piano trio called Paean written for the Onyx Trio was performed by them at St Olave's Church, London on 10th July 2007. Click here to hear the complete performance.
  
  

• Simon was commissioned to write two works as part of Strings and Things - a composition and performance project hosted by the Purcell School featuring Ensemble of London directed by Antonio Cucchiara. The first piece, a trio called A Series of Seemings was played by members of Ensemble of London in a concert on 29 June 2007. The second piece Yarn and Black Sails is a major new piece for professional string players to perform with students and was performed by Ensemble of London together with string students from the Purcell School and other Greater London schools (conducted by Ian Jewel) in a concert to mark the culmination of the project on 30 June 2007. Click here for a sound clip.
  
  

• 1966 (the orchestral work commissioned by the Shropshire Youth Orchestra last year) has had another outing, this time performed by the Colchester Institute Orchestra on 9 May 2007 in the Swinburne Hall, Colchester. The concert was a great success and it was good to hear the fruits of a recent revival in orchestral playing at the college under the baton of Steve Bingham.
  
  

• Simon has been invited to return to the composition teaching department at Royal Holloway, University of London in the academic year 2007-8.
  
  

• Demeter and Persephone a new piece for solo violin was brilliantly premiered by the exciting young violinist Joo-Yeon Sir in a concert at the Purcell School on 6 December 2006. This piece was written in celebration of the birth of Simon's new daughter Zora Sioux on 6 November 2006. A recording of this performance is available to listen to (there are also complete recordings of Panorama for cello and piano and Catharsis for solo viola recorded at a Big Noise concert last year) on the Catalogue of works page.
  
  

• The Ealing Clarinet Choir and Ensemble (ECCE) gave a rousing performance of their commission Jiggery-pokery with students from St Paul's School at St Paul's School on 11 November 2006.
  
  'Simon Speare's Jiggery-pokery was purposely and successfully an entertainment piece' Stephen Dodgson, Clarinet and Saxophone Spring 2007
  
  

• Procession for Derek (Simon's wind quintet in memory of friend and colleague Derek Kitt) was performed by the Cornish Wind Quintet at the Derek Kitt Memorial Concert in the Hall for Cornwall, Truro, on 8 October 2006.
  
  

• Eagle-eyed telly viewers among you will have spotted Simon's piano piece Soliloquy (from Dramatics) being performed by piano finalist Kausikan Rajeshkumar in the BBC Young Musician of the Year broadcast over the May 2006 bank holiday.
  
  

• On 29 March 2006 Colchester Institute Big Noise performers played three of Simon's more recent pieces: Dramatics (for solo piano), Panorama (for piano and cello) and Catharsis for viola (world premiere) alongside new works by Alan Bullard, Tim Tory, Eric Hudes, Alan Parsons, Steve Ferre, Julia Usher and Stuart Russell. The evening concert followed an afternoon of workshops with student composers led by Simon with players from Big Noise.
  
  

• Simon presented the classical radio show Dead and Alive on Resonance FM in February. He was asked to guest-present a one off show after being a featured composer earlier in the season.
  
  

• Steve Bingham (www.stevebingham.co.uk) and Chris Brannick gave two performances of Abandoned slatemine. Ghosts and fiddler as part of the Newham Festival in east London during September 2005.
  
  

• Sarah Suckling and Huw Watkins performed Panorama for cello and piano at the Royal College of Music on 18th April 2005.
  
  

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