Philip Venables

  • We Are The Lucky Ones

    an award-winning, 65-minute, chamber opera for 2 singers, 4 cellists, sound and video, with text by Ted Huffman based on a tragic true story about 2 Russian runaway teenagers, looking at the internet culture of voyeurism and trolling.

  • The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions

    an award-winning, 65-minute, chamber opera for 2 singers, 4 cellists, sound and video, with text by Ted Huffman based on a tragic true story about 2 Russian runaway teenagers, looking at the internet culture of voyeurism and trolling.

  • Answer Machine Tape, 1987

    a 45-minute multimedia piece for solo piano with sound and live video using a MIDI KeyScanner on the piano. Based on the weeks around the death of artist Peter Hujar in 1987 from AIDS-related illness, as told through the answerphone messages left for fellow artist David Wojnarowicz.

  • Naomo Pinnetuo

    a 2-minute, fast piece for solo violin

  • numbers 81–85; numbers 96–100

    12 minutes (numbers 81–85) and 8 minutes (numbers 96–100). For Mezzo-Soprano (F3–A5), Alto flute, Clarinet, String Trio and optional video projection. Based on poetry by Simon Howard.

  • Venables plays Bach

    Venables plays Bach is a 42-channel looping sound installation with optional live organ performance (c.30 minutes), commissioned by Festival d’Automne à Paris for their 2021 Festival, installed in l’Église de Saint Eustache. The demo track in stereo above gives a rough sense of walking through the installation, using material from just 14 individual tracks, and […]

  • My Favourite Piece is the Goldberg Variations

    A 23-minute piece for solo accordion who, in a troubadour fashion, plays and tells a mother’s lifestory in 12 short chapters, from first crush at school through marriage, children, retirement, being widowed, and attending her son’s accordion concerts where he plays the Goldberg Variations.

  • Alice

    A short (4-minute) dramatic song for tenor and piano in which a gay man reminisces about visiting his Grandmother in hospital.

  • Denis & Katya

    an award-winning, 65-minute, chamber opera for 2 singers, 4 cellists, sound and video, with text by Ted Huffman based on a tragic true story about 2 Russian runaway teenagers, looking at the internet culture of voyeurism and trolling.

  • Venables plays Bartók

    Programme Note In November 1993 I was 14 years old and practising for my Grade 6 violin. My teacher, Marilyn Shearn, took me and three other pupils to play for her old teacher, Rudolf Botta. I played Bartók’s Evening in the Village — a perennial favourite on the ABRSM Exam Syllabus. Marilyn videotaped the masterclass, and nearly […]

  • Bound to Hurt

    a 75-minute chamber music theatre piece that reflects on pop songs about domestic violence, devised with artist Douglas Gordon, singer Ruth Rosenfeld, dramaturg Laura Berman and Ensemble Adapter.

  • 4.48 Psychosis

    an award-winning 90-minute chamber opera based on Sarah Kane’s searing final play of the same name, for six singers, 12 instrumentalists, sound and video, first produced by the Royal Opera Covent Garden

  • Illusions (feat. David Hoyle)

    an aggressive, political, in-yer-face piece for ensemble of 9 players and video, 14 minutes long, featuring performance artist David Hoyle, on the themes of gender, sexuality, democracy, war and revolution.

  • The Revenge of Miguel Cotto

    a 14-minute piece based on poems by Steven J Fowler about the real life betrayal and revenge of boxer Miguel Cotto on Antonio Margarito. Scored for two male vocalists, 3 violins, 3 trombones, accordion and two percussion playing punchbags.

  • numbers 76-80 : tristan and isolde

    words and music, for four voices (SATB) and string quartet, using the poem ‘numbers 76–80: tristan und isolde’ by Simon Howard. 14 minutes, in five short movements.

  • numbers 91–95

    spoken text and music (voice with two tape recorders, flute, harp, woodblock), based on the poem of the same name by Simon Howard. 9 minutes.

  • Metamorphoses after Britten

    8 minutes. Four miniatures for solo oboe, with versions also for clarinet, saxophone or bassoon.

  • Piano Studies

    a set of five studies for piano, duration 17 minutes.

  • Arc

    Details Arc was developed for performance by the BBC Philharmonic as part of spnm’s artistic season 2005/06. The premiere took place at Broadcasting House, Manchester, on 24th November 2005, conducted by James MacMillan. It was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3.Arc is dedicated to my grandmother, Anne Killen 20/08/1919 – 18/10/2005. Arc was nominated for […]

  • K (prelude to Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet)

    A meditative prelude to Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, duration 7’30”, in which the string quartet obscures and reveals the first two bars of Mozart’s Quintet, which are finally revealed at the end.