IDENTITY one minute read

 

I am an old composer.

I am an old woman.

My bones though feel fresh. 

I have travelled far and yet I am nowhere near my destination. 

My breasts are still pert, my breath fresh, my libido intact.

I am an old composer.

I am a poet.

 

 I am a cherry picker of dreams and I pick my nose at night.

I am gay in my heart but in reality, I am straight.

I identify as a successful male composer

And yes, I would have liked to have a penis 

But that was really because I wanted the power that men have, that men still have.

I am an old composer. 

Fuck I am a woman. 

 

Most featured art music composers are still young men. 

The teachers of composition departments are mostly middle-aged white men. 

Sure a few women get a show. 

But did you know that only 11% of new art music featured on the BBC is by women?

But there are more women composing than that, I can assure you.

 

I walk by the roaring symphony of the North Sea every day

I am whole without accolades. 

I have a male composer soul-mate who sustains my vision.

 

I am an old woman composer 

Who identifies as a young successful male composer 

Help me!

No forget that, I will help myself 

I am worth it. 

I am a god, if only you knew!

Sunken Cities 8' for string quartet composed by Dr Self

https://soundcloud.com/selfmademusic/sunken-cities-8?si=41163cb0d0434afaa15bffb8f0a6fd80&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 

Holkham Bay, North Norfolk

We agree to meet at 6.00am in the secret club house.Two Minute Read

I meet a tall, slim, mature man with long, wavey, fair hair. He has the feeling of a magician or a form of Dr Who. I am deeply attracted to him and he drives me in a sturdily armoured 4 x 4 truck along the side of a beautiful, clear, pollution-free river. It is summer and there are large oak trees set slightly away from the grassy banks that caress the winding river. The bank that we drive along is rocky and rough at first but then smooths out to grass and makes an easy ride. 

The Scene: Self, 2024.

We arrive at a club house in the woods, were I discover that the elegant man I am attracted to is a composer. He is meeting a choir to talk about a commission. We are so excited by each other that we agree to meet in secret the next morning at 6.00 am in the club house to have sex. He gives me a four digit code to the club house which is 4121.   

This is the dream I had last night. It was I fancy about the male soul that lives within me. He is a composer, he is my muse. He is also my husband, my lovers, my friends who support me and my infinite  imagination. If a male artist has a female muse then it is fitting that a woman needs a male muse. I am not transgender however I identify as male composer because I am outspoken and compose muscular music as well as beautiful music. I like pithy music drama like Martha's Rant in my opera The Butt which I composed for Musiktheatertage in Vienna in 2016.

https://youtu.be/ZAGo-Jmiv9w 

Dr Self conducting in Vienna 2016

But the dream has some other pointers. The infinite stream of clear and gorgeous music ideas that I have, the beauty of nature, the fact that being an artist is a rocky road sometimes. But most intriguingly of all that to get into the clubhouse, where I can join with my soul composer, I need a code.This final point reminds me how difficult it is to find the way into the accepted profession of composers. I still feel like on the outside but I am working on it!  

Her Self in Mexico

On Resonance: Two Minute Read

When you strike a tuning fork, its resonance continues for a very long time. This is also what happens with experiences. So my musing this morning is about the beautiful loft flat in Ghent at Claudine Bovyn's Beguinage tucked into the centre. The resonances continue: the creaky wooden floors, the slightly pooey smell from the drains below, the vast Norwegian sledge bed and the view of the famous three church towers from the loft window. To know that Van Eyk's iconic altarpiece was only as minute away filled me with delight.

Detail from Van Eyk's Altarpiece, Ghent

But even more during these months spent living in Ghent was the feeling that as an artist that anything in my imagination was possible. It was a time of multiple contracts singing for the Vlaamse opera. But I also composed my second symphony Memories, Dreams, Reflections in that enchanted loft . Days of waiting to be called to rehearsal facilitated this so that I interfaced composing with gentle walks down the main canal where Maeterlink would have wandered.

Memories

https://youtu.be/0EerLaeHKP8

Dreams

https://youtu.be/taT26j1fhTA

Reflections

https://youtu.be/VLUqLMu_0Xo

Now some considerable time later the resonance of the Ghent experience strikes as I sit in another version of that loft, The ARC in coastal Norfolk. It is A Room of My Own as Virginia Wolf would describe it. I have all day to compose and drink in the stunning view of the water meadow interlaced with walks by the sea. 

The ARC, Artists Retreat Centre, February 2024

The Norfolk Coast

 

 

On Dealing With Rejection. Two Minute Read.

This may not sound like a very positive post but in reality rejection always offer the opportunity for something new and potentially better to happen. Its the silver lining to an awkward feeling inside oneself,

What did I do wrong ?

As a composer I am used to the endless rejections for applications. I have a graveyard, but actually I am quite proud of it because it is a place where each beautifully crafted gravestone holds the story of my ideas expressed so as to fit in with the criteria of an outside brief. I have tended this garden with great care, no attempt is a waste of time. However obviously it is quite hard to squeeze yourself into jeans that are too tight! But every now and then I get lucky such as a competition won: The Lockdown Diaries for Skipton Camerata,

The Frontline Worker, Self, 2021 on Youtube

https://youtu.be/I2M1TZkx2MA?si=K4kRhBbhgwu-vxou

or a recent shortlisting and interview for a composition teaching post at Durham University which although I didn't get I enjoyed the process. It is exciting to feel one is accepted however the cost to oneself from the squeezing can be detrimental. One eminent composition supervisor for my PhD revealed that his life had been made a living misery by International opera houses producing his children's opera on multi-occasions whilst ignoring the deeper angle that the opera expressed. He seemed near mental collapse and made me swear that for my PhD opera Quilt Song, I would follow my own nose in every respect. I oversaw every aspect of the production even down to the funding for which I raised 25 K independently. This choice avoided for example an Arts Council application which is very tough to fit into and anyway is not allowed when you are in full time education. 

Ten Minute introduction to Quilt Song with interviews, Self, 2018, 

https://youtu.be/Yu2LeU87oHw  

But rejection can come in other more painful forms such as from friends or situations. Sometimes I find it very tough to personally cope with especially if I know the rejection is because of lack of duty of care. For example last summer a difficult situation arose with a holiday organisation that I was working for so that I had to resign my post on account of a disagreement over water safety. My integrity and training would not allow me to let people in my care swim unsupported by back-up boat round a dangerous island in the Aegean sea. I sadly had to withdraw on a point of principle. It was the right call but tough to have to reject a situation I love so much because of unethical practice. However the outpouring of love and support from people that I know within the organisation led me to experience that rejecting a situation however painful can have very positive outcomes.I am now free for the summer!

Island Tree, Self, 2023

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again! 

Robert Bruce, King of Scotland

The truth about rejection is that in life it can facilitate a very necessary prompt towards inner growth which can ultimately lead to more self empowerment. Last Autumn I invested in five coaching sessions with a top coach in my field. The outcome was that with her guidance, I realised the huge value of creating and manifesting my own projects over fitting into other organisations criteria. While it is lovely to be acknowledged by official bodies the down side is that they may, well frankly force you to twist your ideas to fit in with theirs. This can leave you in a depressive heap such as the composer who fashioned his well deserved 5 minute Proms commission to fit in with the symphonies in the programme and made a hash of it. Instead my wonderful coach helped lead me to the conclusion that I am on the right track and that official acceptance is the icing on the cake. Manifesting a performance of my Sea Requiem in Ely Cathedral last year resulted in a fabulous review in Musical Opinion something most composers only dream about! 

Sea Requiem was a substantial score, yet the material flowed naturally… the extended silence which followed this conclusion…. was a tribute to the audience’s rapt concentration and the cumulative effect of Susannah Self’s fervent, directly expressive music

Paul Conway, Musical Opinion 2023

SEA REQUIEM on you tube

https://youtu.be/3l0WV7o2aOQ 

Being Her-Self In Mexico

Two minute read on composing the Stabat Mater last summer

Stabat Mater was composed on the Greek island of Skyros during the summer of 2023.

Like a hermit, I composed daily in a bamboo hut with the help of an electric fan to keep me cool.

Out of the door I could see an idyllic sea bay beyond the pine trees.

The Stabat Mater text drew me into a deeper understanding of how the Virgin Mary must have felt at the foot of the cross.

I began to imagine not only her sorrow but also that of Mary Magdalene who was there too.

Therefore the soprano soloist represents the Virgin Mary and the alto soloist, Mary Magdalene.

I also chose to weave into the work some verses of the "Planctus Ante Nescia", another Medieval poem. This was to secure a more intimate view of the Virgin Mary's experience at the foot of the cross.

My overall compositional methodology was to develop the work organically, working from the centre and then outwards on both sides. This was to emulate the way in which an egg develops. In truth the work was composed in full score in a short period of ten days. The claustrophobia of the little hut combined with the exquisite beauty of the seascape drove me into an accelerated rate of output, so much so that on the last day I finished the work by staying up all night accompanied by the Skyros Skops owls. The next day I returned to our cottage beneath Ely Cathedral. The whole sequence of composing the Stabat Mater emulated within in me a dream-like state so that as I rehearse the work, I am scarcely aware that I have composed the music but rather sense that it has composed me! My heartfelt love and thanks goes to my composer husband, Michael Christie for his exquisite editing of the score and preparation of the parts. Also my deep gratitude to The North Sea Orchestra and Voices and the Ely Collegium for their commitment to singing a new work. This setting of the Stabat Mater is designed to go with the orchestration of the Vivaldi Gloria. I am indebted to my sponsors for being able to première the work in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral on 13th April 2024.

Real Men are Feminists

 

This blog is written with profound gratitude to all the special men and women who have supported my dreams as a composer even though I was born female.  

Some years ago realised that I would need to develop a strong sense of humour in relation to the continuing occasional hidden sexism that I encounter as a composer. It is often subtle but can feel like a sad rock in the stomach.

'I worked with another lady pianist' says a singer recently. What is a lady pianist ?  I think. Surely he saw from my email that I have a doctorate and that I am his conductor?

 'How to you identify sexually' a form for a composition residency from Snape requests. ' I identify as a successful male composer ' I write with a sense of ironic desperation and get the residency, although I now would say, I identify as a successful composer, period! 

As a woman who composes it is still not a good idea to express strong views or heaven forfend be trenchant however it is perfectly ok to be strong if you are male. When are we all going to wake up ? Women are not going to go away, we are people too.

 'Who are you?' a top publisher (a woman) parries at me in an opera conference break. 'I am Susannah Self, a composer' She visibly sighs. 'Oh women composers they are so lightweight'. I have already noted she has only one woman on her roster, but I hold my cool and dig into my humour sack. 'Perhaps you would like to have lunch so that we can discuss the future of women composers otherwise your publishing house could join the dinosaurs?' She weakly laughs and we have an amenable lunch although I doubt the lady is for turning.

In a cross section of contemporary operas staged by major opera companies in period 2016/2019 the five that I saw featured a proliferation of male protagonists: Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur (2008), George Benjamin’s Written on Skin (2012) and Lessons in Love and Violence (2018), Hector Parra’s Les Bienveillantes (2019) and Wolfgang Rihm’s Jacob Lenz (2015). 

'Opera director Phyllida Lloyd says there is a conversation ‘that is being had amongst women in the theatre, about the dearth of great roles for women over a certain age, and also [how] job opportunities are much narrower forwomen who are of unconventional size, shape, accent, ethnic origin, whatever.’ 

(Saner, 2016: The Guardian)

' You conduct rather well for a.... ' Oops! The male adjudicator at a conducting competition (2014) trails away his words having realised it was wrong but then goes on to put his foot in it in a private moment with me by saying 'I don't like it that you are so tall'. What the ...! Three years later, 2017, a French newspaper publishes a diatribe by a French conductor who says that women shouldn't conduct ' because they are only suitable for the biological purpose of making babies'. I respond by creating a provocation with my creative partner Marina Sossi. We dress identically as conductors and hand out the pathetic article to passers by who are invited to read it and then do with the paper what they feel like such as crumpling it up in rage or attaching it to us. Most people are incredulous and shocked that someone would even dare to say this.

In the light of these occasional ongoing experiences it is hardly a surprise that I have sometimes wondered if I would have been better off as a man. But the truth is I don't identify as a man or a woman but as a person. I have always climbed trees, played football, made mud pies and lived out my dreams. I have been supported by an amazing Dad and the best male husband I could wish for, another composer brilliant composer in his own right but totally supportive, and yes real men are feminists. 

  

 

  

The Recording of The Sea Requiem

The première of The Sea Requiem was in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral, 1st April 2023. The Sea Requiem is composed for soprano, mezzo, tenor and baritone soloists, SATB chorus, two horns and string orchestra. The orchestration is designed to work alongside Fauré’s Requiem for SATB choir and soloists, strings and two horns in a new arrangement by Michael Christie. 

The score can be viewed and purchased via

 composersedition.com/susannah-self-sea-requiem/ 

Outside my composing studio the ARC in Hindringham, Norfolk

 And the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral 

In the summer of 2021 on the beautiful and very hot island of Skyros, I set out to compose a Requiem in memory of my father. It is crafted to be sung by standard choral societies so the compositional material is intentionally tuneful and harmonically rich. In addition to the traditional Latin texts, I included more complex numbers for the soloists who sing settings of poems about the sea by Keats, Dickinson and Whitman.  

Soprano Aria

Bass Aria

Tenor Aria

The performance here on SoundCloud is sung by The North Sea Singers and The North Sea Orchestra led by The Chaos Collective with Ivan McCready on solo cello and Catrina Nixon and Trevor Denyer on horns. 

Vocal soloists: 

Catherine Joule - Soprano, 

Christopher Lemmings - Tenor,

 Julian Godlee - Bass. 

Susannah Self - Conducter and Mezzo. 

Michael Christie Co-conductor and Orchestral Manager.

Here is the SoundCloud link

https://soundcloud.com/selfmademusic/the-sea-requiem-composed-by-dr-susannah-self?si=cdd5bc5e55684c34aecd8132232ce661&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

I worked all day on the audio and video mix of performances of The Sea Requiem in Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral with the preview in Hindringham Church. The two acoustics have different preferences: 

The Lady Chapel for the choir and Hindringham Church for the soloists. 

It is a juggling act of cutting and matching plus balancing with the recording studio in Logic Pro.

Inside The Lady Chapel

North Sea Singers and Orchestra

SOME EXTRACTS OF THE SCORE

Introit

Kyrie

As if the Sea Should Part Soprano Solo

As if the Sea Should Part Soprano Solo

Offertorium Solo Quartet

Sanctus

 Song of Myself  Bass Solo

De Profundis Mezzo Solo and Choir

Pie Jesu

Agnus Dei

The Sea by John Keats Tenor Solo

Libera Me

Dies Irae

Lux Aeterna Mezzo solo

14. In Paradisum

The Lady Chapel, Ely

For these concerts I am conducted my own ensemble, North Sea Voices and Orchestra led by The Chaos Collective https://www.chaos-collective.com who are a top professional string quartet based in coastal North Norfolk. 

The Chaos Collective

The whole North Sea ensemble has performed in my operas in Vienna, Cambridge and Birmingham. Funding for this project was provided by auctioning movements of the Sea Requiem as dedications to loved ones. This method of fundraising combined with a recent exhibition of my art and a very generous anonymous donation raised over £5,500, enough to cover in advance the fees of the players and soloists. 

Tickets to the concerts were free with a retiring collections, half to a cause and half to cover venue hire costs. 

Hindringham Church :£1,100.00 Gross: £550.00 for the church tower in Hindringham. 

The Lady Chapel: £1,500.00 Gross: £ 725.00 for new RNLI lifeboat at Wells Next-The-Sea in North Norfolk. 

In Hindringham Church for the Preview

Solo quartet with Michael Christie conducting

In Hindringham Church 

With Kris Neilsen

In Hindringham Church

In Norfolk