Sylvia was invited to contribute a new piece to the CoMA partsongs project, a ground-breaking collection of music for small groups of vocalists. Her composition ‘paper wings’ is “a piece about loss, forgetting, reconnecting and how our lives are fragile, like paper“. An intimate piece, inviting performers and audiences alike to listen closely and deeply, paper wings is characteristic of Sylvia’s beautiful music. 

On Sunday 17th March 2024, soprano and composer Heloise Werner will be leading an open participation session on paper wings at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Gateshead, as part of CoMA Festival 2024. Find out how to get involved here!

Read more about Sylvia & listen to her work here: https://sylvialim.co/

Composer, improviser and santoor player Atefeh Einali first wrote for CoMA in 2022 as part of the nonclassical’s Associate Composer Scheme. Originally from Iran, now residing in Manchester, Atefeh’s work often explores themes of translocation and identity. Her CoMA commission ‘Departure’ is a dynamic example of this:

“After three years, I was finally able to return to my home country in October. During my flight from London to Tehran I felt a variety of emotions. At the same time I felt happy and sad, anxious and calm, disappointment and satisfaction. Therefore during my flight I drew the first sketch for this piece based on all of my opposing emotions.” (Atefeh on Departure)

Atefeh is a current PhD candidate at the University of Manchester. In her research on composition practice, she combines her musical traditions (Iranian classical repertoire) with Western contemporary composition studies, exploring cross-cultural improvisation and collaboration. Read more about Atefeh & listen to her work here: 

https://www.atefeheinali.com/

Long-time supporter and CoMA collaborator, Hannah Kendall is a composer from London and current Doctoral Fellow in composition at Columbia University. 

CoMA is very fortunate to feature a work from Hannah’s Tuxedo series in our catalogue. Bold and challenging both musically and in subject matter, Hannah’s Tuxedo Dustbowl #3 is “a meditative lamentation; a communal expression of grief, loss, displacement and despair; of being in the wilderness, the desert, a dust bowl, where all is dried up and destroyed. The harmonica, an instrument associated with Afro-diasporic sorrow, creates a brutal and harsh sound world symbolic of the plantations. It might seem that this does not allow for any hope, but the light comes through in other works in the Dust Bowl tryptic, or indeed the Tuxedo series more widely.” (HK)

Read more about Hannah & listen to her work here: https://hannahkendall.co.uk/

Kate is a composer, pianist, and the co-founder and Artistic Director of The Multi-Story Orchestra.

Kate’s interests and ethos make her a natural collaborator for CoMA. On her piece, Three Movements for CoMA, commissioned for the Festival of Contemporary Music for All 2020, Kate commented “I’ve always loved writing for mixed ensembles and the challenge of making a piece for flexible instrumentation for me felt like really clarifying what was most important about the piece – what its central journey and shape was – whole then leaving it up to the ensemble playing it to decide what the textures and colours would be.”  

Read more about Kate & listen to her work here: https://katewhitley.net/