Send us your email address:
Biographies
Sam Hayes
Sam Hayes was born in 1982 and studied at Guildford County School before coming up to Queens' College Cambridge as Organ Scholar, aged seventeen. During his time at Queens' (including two years as Director of Music in Chapel following his graduation) he made two recordings with the Chapel Choir, released on Guild Music, both demonstrating his penchant for 20th-Century and contemporary English repertoire. He was also active as a conductor with the University Music Society, the University Chamber Orchestra, the University Gilbert and Sullivan Society and the St Margaret Society Chorus and Orchestra. An accomplished organist, he achieved the Associateship, Fellowship and Choral Directing Diplomas of the Royal College of Organists in the space of a year, and, in the latter, was awarded both of the major prizes. He has participated in International Masterclasses in Choral Conducting at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and the Conservatoire Camille Saint Saëns, Paris, and has, to date, received conducting tuition from Michael Gläser, Stefan Parkman, Stephen Cleobury, Denis Rouger, Patrick Russill and David Hill. In addition to his work with The Larks Ascending, he founded Appassionare, a Chamber Choir, in 2003. He currently holds the position of Director of Music at Great St Mary's, the University Church in Cambridge, and supervises papers for the Music degree course. Outside of music, his interests include photography, gastronomy, walking and classic cars.
Adam Pounds
Adam Pounds was born in London in 1954. As a student he studied at music college where his principal subjects were composition, classical guitar, oboe and conducting. As his chief interest was composing he went on to receive composition lessons from Sir Lennox Berkeley as a private student. He later continued his studies at Goldsmith’s College, London where he achieved a Bmus. He founded the Nelson Orchestra which he still conducts in 1981 and has enjoyed a long and fruitful association with Waltham Forest Arts Council. His other interests include politics and fell-walking.
After an early success with his Sinfonietta Pounds composed his first major orchestral piece the Gaelic Triptych in 1983. The work is in three movements and was inspired by a holiday in the Scottish Highlands. The second movement (Corgarff Castle) evokes a misty picture of a lonely and neglected garrison. The finale, subtitled Drumossie Moor is a musical tribute to the Scots who were butchered in the battle of Culloden. The movement ends fittingly with an orchestration of an ancient Scots bagpipe tune. The Festival Overture was a response to a commission from Waltham Forest and the Greater London Arts Council in 1987. This one movement work is an exciting and rhythmic piece which has dynamic brass and percussion parts. Like many of his other works, the Northern Picture is programmatic. The main influence on this piece was the stone circle at Castlerigg. The stone circle represented a meeting place for festivals and dancing as well as worship and the music is a collage of dance, mysticism and combat. An earlier work, Life Cycle was composed for dance and shares the same idea of programme although in this case it is far more abstract dwelling on life’s journey with the fullness of life being represented by a strong minimalist section.
As well as orchestral music, Pounds has also composed a number of chamber works that include sonatas for violin and for flute, but it was not until the composition of the second string quartet that the music returned to a programmatic form. This one movement work, composed in 2003 contrasts themes of a war-like nature with those of reason and mediation. The CD launch concert for this piece took place in May 2005 coupled with works by Shostakovich and Samuel Barber. Other pieces have been inspired by literature such as the Shakespeare Sonnets for voice, flute and piano. His third string quartet has just been completed.
The largest work to date is a new music-drama ‘Syn’ based on the book ‘Dr Syn’ by Russell Thorndike. It is a story of a Kent coastal village in the eighteenth century where the villagers are profiting from the spoils of smuggling. Life is good until the arrival of Captain Howard Collyer, a Revenue Officer determined to smash the smuggling gang and bring them to justice. The first performance will take place in January 2007 in the Mumford Theatre, Cambridge.