In celebration of their 200th Anniversary, the Royal Academy of Music asked 200 composers for birthday-gift compositions for solo instruments. To celebrate our friendship, which began at the Academy in 2002, Naomi Pinnock and I both chose to write for solo violin, taking snippets of musical material from each other’s student works for strings. This resulted in my piece, Noamo Pinnetuo, performed by Academy student Ezo Sarici, and Naomi’s piece, The Shadow of the Thing, performed by Academy student Daniel Stroud.

Today the Academy has recorded and released all 200 recordings on a special website. The recordings are available for streaming here:

Venables — Naomo Pinnetuo, performed Ezo Sarici

Pinnock — The Shadow of the Thing, performed by Daniel Stroud.

Photo of Ezo Sarici © Will Thomas