Friendly Piece

Written during Andrew Hamilton’s time as composer in residence with Crash Ensemble, Friendly Piece alludes to hovering between things, to evade being pinned down. It explores friendliness and kindness giving you a ‘tiny bit of joy or even infuriating you.’ Everything belongs.

The music is structured in an ‘unfree grid’, Hamilton’s attempt to emulate the joy he found in the work of abstract expressionist painter Agnes Martin: ‘Everything in the piece is there from the very beginning but then it is as though we sometimes focus our ears on one bit of the grid, then off to another, then spend a longer time honing in on one glissando or maybe a tiny fragment, then we forget it again.’

The design is a response to the recording, and the ideas behind it. It draws heavily from the art that influenced the music. Agnes Martin’s minimalist, and austere grids are re-imagined. So both the composition, and the design, look to investigate the ambiguous space in which music is performed.