Song of the Rain

Item details

Description +
- Song of the Rain is a gently flowing piece, with running quarter notes underpinning much of the music. There is a feeling of nostalgia running throughout the piece, as if one were inside on a rainy day looking out of the window and reminiscing about past events. The music ebbs and flows, much as one’s mood might when thinking about the past.
  
  Supported by the Stellar Composer Competition 2021.
Instrumentation +
- Solo Marimba
Watch+
About the composer +
- Edmund’s music draws on a huge range of styles and influences. He writes music for film and television and is also an award-winning concert composer.
  
  Recent commissions include pieces for the ABRSM, the Pink Singers, the Royal Academy of Music, the London Chinese Children’s Ensemble, and Oxford University Press Collections. His choral music is available from OUP, Stainer and Bell, and Banks Music. Many of his pieces are set works on the ABRSM syllabus (initial grade piano and clarinet).
  
  First Prizes include: Orpheus Academy Chamber Music Competition, Austin, Texas, USA (first and second prize); Eastern Michigan University Choral Competition, USA; Kantos Chamber Choir Carol Competition; Freudig Singers Choral Composition Competition, USA; Ithaca College Choral Composition Competition, USA; Amadeus Choir Songwriting Competition, Canada; Ely Consort Advent Composing Competition; Hendrix Candlelight Carol Competition, USA; Renée B. Fisher Composer Award, USA.
  
  He has been writing music to picture for over twenty years. Major series he has composed music for include The Traitors, Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC1), Homestead Rescue (Discovery), Sort Your Life Out (BBC1), Grand Designs: The Street (C4), Crazy Delicious (C4/Netflix), Long Lost Family (ITV1), and Unreported World (C4). He was nominated for an RTS Craft and Design Award for his score for the BBC film Elizabeth at 90.
  
  He taught composition for many years at the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music (Junior Departments) and also lectured in Composing for the Moving Image at City University.
  
  In 2021, Odense Percussion, led by Søren Monrad, commissioned a new ensemble piece by Edmund called The Game, which was world-premiered at the Danish National Academy of Music, Denmark on November 15, 2021.
  
  More information about him can be found at: www.edmundjolliffe.com
  
  Information current to August 2025
Reviews +
- Review (Percussive Notes, June 2022)
  
  Written for the 2021 Edition Svitzer composition contest, this 5½-minute solo is lyrical, pleasant- sounding, and challenging — but achievable. Throughout the work, marimbists are required to navigate scaler melodic passages and chordal outlines with four mallets, as well as shift smoothly between duple and triple meter while connecting melodic pulses that shift from hand to hand.
  
  At times, this work harkens to pieces by Debussy and Tchaikovsky (think “Children’s Songs”), as well as hinting at the lyricism of Bach cello suites. However, this piece also has modern hemiola-like treatment of the harmony, with one hand pulsing chords in groups of three within a 4/4 time signature. In addition to these types of treatments, this work also will challenge marimbists with the requirement to sustain one-handed rolls across intervals of a major or minor third.
  
  All in all, this piece is through-composed, but feels connected and complete. Its challenges are made easier through repetition. And it is a piece that hints at other works while still retaining a unique identity that fits well within idiomatic marimba literature.
  
  —Joshua D. Smith
Credits +
- Cover graphics and layout: Nicola Lee
  Engraving: CPH Engraving
  Printed in Copenhagen, Denmark
  Copyright © Edition SVITZER
  www.editionsvitzer.com

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