Anna Semple, composer

Who or what are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?

I was really lucky that I got to play in the National Youth Orchestra whilst growing up, so had a lot of exposure to new music. I got to play commissions by Unsuk Chin, and Anna Meredith, as well as pieces by Mark Anthony Turnage, Thomas Ades and Harrison Birtwistle. These experiences really opened by eyes to what music could be and kind of got me started on a path towards writing. A few years later I applied for a Masters at Guildhall to study with Matthew Kaner and Sylvia Lim, both of whom have been extremely influential on my writing process.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

The main challenge I’ve found has been that after graduating it’s so easy to become whisked away on a wave of business, especially since I also work as a choral singer so am often away on tour. When you’re riding the wave of work, it gets really easy to lose sight of the playfulness of writing and the artistic satisfaction you can get from working on something purely for creative purposes. I’m lucky that I receive commissions and have a busy work life, but I do wish there was more space in our industry for experimenting and occasionally failing, as that’s what allows you to continue to grow!

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece?

Commissions usually come with their own set of parameters such as instrumentation, rehearsal time constraints or theme, and these are in equal parts helpful to coming up with something new and challenging to adapt to.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles or orchestras?

The best thing about working with other musicians is collaboration. Sadly really active collaboration isn’t possible very often, mostly due to time and fee constraints but also if you’re working with a large ensemble. It’s extremely rewarding to be able to communicate with the person you’re writing for whilst you’re working, and it usually produces the most interesting work since you’re able to bounce ideas and receive feedback from someone that isn’t just you!

Of which works are you most proud?

Probably this chamber opera I wrote at the end of my masters:

Or this piece I wrote for the Marian Consort a couple of years ago:

My piece FLORA also has a special place in my heart, as my friend and I performed it at Waterperry Opera Festival in 2022. It was the first time I’d ‘professionally’ dabbled in live improvisation and movement, and really pushed me creatively.

How would you characterise your compositional language?

I find this question really difficult to answer. Largely I’m interested in music that I would enjoy performing myself. In vocal music I often play around with the phenomenology of text (or how the text feels to say/the composite sounds), and in instrumental music timbre is really important to me. I often use elements in my score that mean each performance is different by necessity (i.e. using aleatoric cells, or more graphic elements). Maybe a good way of generally answering this is to say that I think my music is quite unsettled (though not unsettling?) and flighty, and I like things to disappear as suddenly as they appear.

How do you work?

Another tricky question! This depends on a few variables, namely time and place. I’ll always spend a lot of time thinking about stuff, maybe doing a bit of line drawing for structure brainstorms, or looking up and reading through lots of texts if I’m writing for voices. With text I tend to like shorter forms. If I’m pushed for time on a piece I’ll do a lot of work just sketching ideas on paper and then writing them out more neatly, before testing various bits and making changes. When I’ve got a bit more time in hand I’ll explore freer ways of working (which tends to be much more enjoyable). This also all depends on what I’m writing for – if someone wants something quite abstract, or something which involves other art forms too, that’ll vastly change my approach.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

I’ve found it really liberating to think of success as basically being me enjoying what I’m doing, whatever that might be. I’d like to be able to do the best I can in a context which allows for that to happen whilst also allowing for enjoyment. Beyond that I don’t think success/failure is a very helpful model for any of us to base our ambitions.

What advice would you give to young/aspiring composers?

Find what gives you that excited feeling and explore. Just go to things, try things out, write some really terrible pieces (think about whether terrible music exists?). I wish I had been more curious more of the time – it’s the thing that opens our eyes and ears to new ways of writing and hearing and performing.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?

I don’t think I’ve got the answer to this one really, but I think really good work is being done by organisations like Through The Noise in bringing all sorts of music to new spaces. That’s the kind of thing that brings a real mixture of people into an audience I think. In general I just think there’s a bit of a lack of a concert-going culture at the moment – and I think I’m definitely part of the problem! Whenever I go to anything I always say ‘I definitely need to do this more!’, but for some reason I don’t, and I don’t think that’s always because of ticket prices or concert programming (though this I’m sure plays a part). The concert culture in Europe is so amazing, and I think that’s basically down to the arts being so much more openly valued by the state. It feels like government after government here is afraid to put proper money behind (all) the arts, and it results in these culture wars over ‘elite’ art (yuck) where the UK is embarrassed by the state of culture, and as a result the public feel alienated by it because it’s suddenly become something separate from all other sectors.

What’s the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about but you think we should be?

I don’t feel very qualified to speak on this – I’m really glad that things like mental health and representation are becoming much more mainstream topics of conversation, but I’d love to see more action. I’d love to see a bit more interest in using contemporary music in educational contexts – I’m a big believer that more open graphic notation and experimental music would be great ways of getting kids who feel like they could never be classical musicians or ‘composers’ in the more traditional sense see that there’s so much more out there, as well as providing a more logical bridge towards reading Western notation.

Tell us about your ‘Nunc Dimittis’, which is featured on the Magnificat 4 album. How did the work come about? Could you tell us about the aleatoric composition process you used? What was it like to hear it performed by the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, with your brother on violin?

I wrote my Nunc for Clare College’s 40th anniversary of admitting women to college, and their choir premiered it in 2020, just as things were beginning to transition to normality after Covid. I’d always held of writing canticles until that point, mainly because I’d sung so many settings whilst I sang at Trinity Hall and Jesus. I’m really glad they asked for a Nunc rather than a Mag though as the text length is much more up my street! My starting point for the piece was thinking of the prayer as a very personal petition from Simeon. This partly explains the use of aleatoric cells – they’re not truly left up to chance as I specify pitches, but allowing the singers a bit of agency was me trying to reflect the personal nature of the text, even though it’s one evensong-goers hear every day. I’m quite keen on aleatoric writing, particularly for institutional choirs or young people, as I think it’s really important to encourage individual singing and to demonstrate how important it is for all the musicians to contribute artistically to the performance. I also love that every performance will be different! I didn’t realise my brother would end up playing the violin part whilst I was writing it, but I’m looking forward to hearing it!

Magnificat 4, featuring the Choir of St John’s College Cambridge, directed by Andrew Nethsingha, is available now on the Signum label

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