"Composers are not Aliens"
Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Composer in Residence 2024/25
Cheryl Frances-Hoad replies immediately to the email enquiry asking if we could meet for an interview. "In two hours?" she writes back. It sounds as if she has nothing else to do on this Saturday. But that's not the case. She is in the middle of working on a new piece. A work commissioned by the Musikdorf.
The final rehearsal of "My Day in Hell", a string quartet that she composed in 2006, is also on the programme for the same day. The composer has been working on it as part of a workshop in Ernen with students from the Sion University of Music. Instead of being annoyed by the early morning disruption, Cheryl Frances-Hoad thanks for the interview request. She is looking forward to the meeting. Her spontaneity will not be the only surprise this morning.
Composing in Ernen
Two hours later, we are sitting opposite each other in her studio on the village square in Ernen. The 44-year-old is spending three months composing here as Composer-in-Residence 2024/25. Cheryl Frances-Hoad appears gentle and at peace with herself, yet playful and lively at the same time. It's easy to imagine her poring over music paper in the semi-darkness or carefully bringing new sounds to life at the grand piano.
Her bright blue eyes and reddish hair, which she has loosely tied into a braid, are striking. The light purple shirt peeking out from under the blue quilted waistcoat is covered in black ‘spots’, which on closer inspection turn out to be kittens. There is a yoga mat on the floor, also purple. Yes, says Cheryl Frances-Hoad, yoga is part of her daily ritual. She is in good company. The violinist Sir Yehudi Menuhin, whom she met personally in London, also practised his physical exercises every day.
Notes rather than words
There is a sheet of music on the table. It is still blank. She is in the process of manifesting her ideas, she says. "The writing comes later." Rituals help her to compose. She starts early every morning and finishes writing in the evening. In between, there are short breaks where she goes for walks, for example. "Composing is a completely normal profession." It has little to do with the kiss of the muses or divine inspiration.
But, she says, smiling mischievously, it is of course not impossible to be given a good idea by invisible spirits while you sleep. "But then I have to write it down immediately. Preferably before I'm fully awake. Otherwise - whoosh - it's gone." Frances-Hoad wanted to be a cellist until she was 14. "That was probably because I was incredibly shy and hardly spoke at school. I just preferred to express myself with notes rather than words. Playing the cello gave me a voice."
Award-winning from the kitchen table
Cheryl Frances-Hoad grew up in Essex, south-east of London, as an single child and the daughter of a flute teacher who played a lot of music with her. Cheryl began playing the cello early on. At the age of eight, she was accepted into the Yehudi Menuhin School in south London. "It was an intense time and I was very happy," she recalls. Yehudi Menuhin was a regular visitor. Her talent for composition, developed at an early stage, led to her being chosen to compose a piece to celebrate Menuhin's 80th birthday. The birthday celebrant was very impressed by the concert, the press later reported.
While most students at the time were aiming for a solo career, Cheryl Frances-Hoad began to take a serious interest in composition. At the age of 14, she composed a concertino for cello, piano and percussion and won the BBC Young Composer Award. She was "blown away" that she was able to achieve such prestigious success with a piece that she had written at the kitchen table. She left school at 18 and enrolled at Cambridge University.
Colourful and accessible
"There were many choirs at Cambridge University. One day, the director of music asked me to compose a work for choir." The performance was a great success and triggered an avalanche of commissions. She composed works for piano, cello, violin, small ensembles and orchestras, singers and choirs, a two-hour opera, works for children and for professionals. Benjamin Britten is her role model as a composer, says Cheryl Frances-Hoad. "He composed for the Royal Opera House, but also for people in the village where he lived. I love this diverse mix. As a composer, I don't want to live in an ivory tower, I want to compose music that is useful to people." In other words: colourful music that is performable and accessible to a wide range of audiences.
And what does the commission from Ernen mean to her? "It's a wish come true for me. I can finally write exactly the work I've wanted to write for so long." With commissioned works, the specifications are usually fixed. For example "could you write a four-minute piece for three wind instruments? Or a seven-minute piece for our choir." She wants to write a large, four-movement string quartet for the Musikdorf.
With antennae outstretched
Cheryl Frances-Hoad has familiarised herself with Ernen and the surrounding area on daily walks. In doing so, she has stretched her antennas of perception far and wide. "Dealing with everyday things triggers musical feelings and associations in me." She mentions the autumn leaves changing colour. The mosses by the wayside, which are delicate and powerful at the same time. The gentle movements in the treetops when the wind blows through them. The stones with their rough and mirror-smooth surfaces that begin to glisten when a ray of sunlight hits them. "These processes may seem unspectacular and ordinary to others. But they take my breath away."
She does not have synaesthetic hearing, says Cheryl Frances-Hoad. But she associates the colours and textures of things with keys and musical harmonies. She also wants to capture the intense feelings of happiness she experienced on the panoramic trail from Mühlebach to Ernen in her new string quartet. The composer says that she is a romantic and feels a connection to the traditional repertoire - especially Brahms, Beethoven and Britten. "And in the landscape around Ernen, I feel very close to the music."
Written in November 2024, by Marianne Mühlemann
Buy your ticket for the world premiere of the new string quartet on 9 August
