Re-imagine the fanfare for the 21st Century!

This resource is for participants of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group's Creative Composing Lab. On Sunday 3 July, young composers from around the Commonwealth will join young composers in the UK to create fanfares to celebrate Birmingham's hosting of the Commonwealth Games. This resource contains:

• Information about the day
• Videos to support composing your fanfare
• Videos about the different instruments you will be composing for 

Workshop date & times:

• Sunday 3 July
• International participants 14.00 - 18.15 BST (check HERE for your time zone)
• UK participants 10.00 - 18.15 BST 

Requirements for international participants:

• Stable internet connection
• Access to notation software - Sibelius, MuseScore or the ability to create PDF scores to send by email
• Reasonable fluency in English

UK participants will participate in a morning session before being joined by international participants at 14.00 GMT. This set of resources are mainly to support international participants joining the workshop later to enable them to be at a similar stage of the composition process as the UK participants by the time they come together. 

By 14.00 BST, on Sunday 3rd July you will need to have an initial draft of your composition. Ideally, please send before the workshop day. Please send to learning@bcmg.org.uk. 

Creative Composing Lab will be led by composer David Horne, Professor of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music. You will be composing for an ensemble of 4 BCMG musicians - Melinda Maxwell, oboe, Ryan Linham, trumpet, Ben Markland, double bass and Kuljit Bharma, Indian tabla.

The Composing Brief

We want you to re-imagine the fanfare for the 21st Century! We are defining a fanfare as a short musical flourish.

Your fanfare should be up to 1 minute long and should be composed for an ensemble of four musicians comprising oboe, trumpet, double bass and Indian tabla. You can compose your music in whatever style or genre you like, or no style or genre at all.  We would like you to use a melodic or rhythmic idea from the traditional, folk or popular music of your country as the starting point for your fanfare. What you chose to do with that initial idea is entirely up to you!

On the following pages you will find videos to guide you composing your fanfare. Additional resources can be found below in the downloads section or by clicking HERE.

This project is a partnership project with The Commonwealth Resounds.