A composer of ferocious dramatic instincts
— Alex Ross
Last week’s performance of Fuck Forever was reviewed by www.sosogay.com.
“There were some really great little works in among the chaff….. Philip Venables’ Fuck Forever managed to tease out a dark and violent portrait of sexual desire.”
Definitely a line I will quote in my biography!
Check out the full review here.
Fuck forever from Philip Venables on Vimeo.
My 3-minute Six Word Opera was premiered last week (11th and 12th August) at Riverside Studios in London, as part of the Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival. It was performed by the wonderful John Savournin (speaker/singer), James Young (piano and MD), Rosalind Acton (cello) and Matthew West (woodblock). Check out this video of one of the performances.
James Young asked me to write one for the second year of the successful Six Word Opera project. As almost all of my recent pieces have involved spoken word in concert music (I —- the body electric, numbers 91-95, numbers 76-80 : tristan und isolde, The Schmürz all in the last 12 months), this seemed a great way to try out some ideas. Also a good testing ground for the project that I am working on with Jorge Balça and Omar Ebrahim which is also a mini-opera, semi-staged, with themes of sex, sexuality and violence.