LSO Discovery
Free Friday Lunchtime Concert:
LSO Soundhub
TODAY'S CONCERT
Holly Gowland Tabata
Robert Crehan TRIO. / THREE ASYNCHRONOUS LINES.
Tonia Ko Soothe a Tooth
Whan Ri-Ahn Granny’s Old Tale from 'Fantasía Nostálgica'
Alec Jones Why don't they keep their mouths shut and their ears open? (world premiere)
Clare Duckworth violin
Mabon Rhyd viola
Amanda Truelove cello
Rachel Leach presenter
LSO Soundhub is generously supported by Susie Thomson with additional support from the Hinrichsen Foundation
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Holly Gowland (b 2000)
Tabata
Izumi Tabata is a Japanese sports scientist who developed the theory of high-intensity interval training structured around 20 seconds of activity followed by ten seconds of rest. This cycle forms the structural foundation of the piece, shaping its pacing, momentum and shifts in energy. Alongside this, the work translates timbral and tonal elements of the Japanese flute, the shakuhachi, into a contemporary musical language, drawing on its breath-like textures, flexible pitch inflections and meditative sonic character. Through the interaction of these contrasting ideas, the piece explores the relationship between physical intensity and stillness, endurance and reflection.
Note by Holly Gowland
Robert Crehan (b 1991)
TRIO. / THREE ASYNCHRONOUS LINES.
TRIO. / THREE ASYNCHRONOUS LINES. (2026) is a work for string trio in which the players move through material at their own pace. Without a fixed metric pulse, the music unfolds gradually as a layered texture of fragments, sometimes aligning, sometimes diverging. The result is an unpredictable, kaleidoscopic soundworld.
The piece is structured as a microcanon: a form in which identical or similar material is played simultaneously, but without coordination in tempo or rhythm. Each performer progresses independently, allowing a collective form to emerge through contrast, coincidence and the inherent instability of unmeasured time.
Note by Robert Crehan
Tonia Ko (b 1988)
Soothe a Tooth
Soothe a Tooth is a brief contemplation on clenched jaws, cracked teeth, and dry tongues – as well as the coping techniques one might try in order to soothe these invisible stress responses. The work highlights and isolates the physical motion of tensing and relaxing hands, often allowing the gesture to dictate sonic results. Through these repeated patterns, the lone musician attempts to tolerate their own distress.
Note by Tonia Ko
Whan Ri-Ahn (b 1996)
Granny’s Old Tale from 'Fantasía Nostálgica'
'Granny’s Old Tale' is the third movement from my six-movement work for solo violin, Fantasía Nostálgica (2024), exploring nostalgia, longing and childhood memory. The violin was my very first instrument, before I later interrupted my studies, and to me the violin and its case always felt like a box of nostalgia. In this piece, I wanted the violin itself to become a device capable of transforming the concert hall into a chamber of memory. The six movements are connected like children’s games of word-chain, where memories and gestures continuously lead into one another.
Each movement evokes fragments of childhood imagination and recollection – a tightrope walker, a ghostly merry-go-round, lullabies for counting stars, dreams and half-remembered stories – before the work finally returns to the present in its last movement, 'P.S. (The Postcard from the Old Drawer)', as though closing an old drawer, or the violin case itself.
At the emotional centre of the work lies 'Granny’s Old Tale', a minuet inspired by the bedtime stories my grandmother used to tell me. Having left North Korea during her lifetime, she often spoke of the hometown and the family she could never return to and her stories carried both warmth and sorrow.
This duality shapes the music throughout the movement. Pentatonic and chromatic materials coexist in layered double stops, while moments of delicate dance are interrupted by bursts of ricochet bowing and open-string pizzicato.
Fantasía Nostálgica was commissioned by violinist Inmo Yang, who gave the premiere at the Carl Bechstein Hall in Kronberg on 3 July 2024.
Note by Whan Ri-Ahn
Alec Jones (b 2003)
Why don't they keep their mouths shut and their ears open?
Why don't they keep their mouths shut and their ears open? is a composition for string trio that probably deals with music as spatial art form within the concert format. This work ... traditional concert setting ... formal musical language ... concept of spatiality ... non-linear, de-dramatised gestures of musical gesturing ... etc. It is simply there. As spectators and listeners we can only witness it.
The formal means by which a music-as-space is created stem from a way of thinking that is influenced by the techniques of acoustic composition and that seeks to transpose these structures to regular music. Specifically, this involves the technique of sampling, which is applied to audio files instead of score excerpts. Because of its masterful complexity, four measures from Waka Flocka Flame's Tune-up man were chosen as the ideal source material. These four measures form the entire material for the four minutes of music.
Note by Alec Jones
About the Artists
© Kit McCarthy
© Kit McCarthy
Holly Gowland
Composer
Holly Vita Gowland is a Birmingham-based composer and sonic artist whose practice explores the relationship between sound, memory and energy transfer. Working across electroacoustic, mixed and acoustic composition, her music collages field recordings, instrumental textures and spatial experimentation into immersive listening experiences. Holly is currently completing a PhD in Musical Composition at the University of Birmingham, where her research investigates space-making as a compositional tool within evolving cities, supported by AHRC. She previously completed an MSt in Music (Composition) at the University of Oxford and a BMus (Hons) Composition from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. She has won numerous awards including the Henfrey Prize for Composition, the Bill Warman Award from Musicians Union and she has been supported by the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation through a Special Award between 2025 to 2026. Her pieces have been performed internationally in Ecuador, Mexico City and Berlin.
© Wai Lok Cheung
© Wai Lok Cheung
Robert Crehan
Composer
Robert Crehan is a British composer from Luton, Bedfordshire. His work draws inspiration from visual art and literature and is currently focused on guided improvisation, spontaneity and performer agency. After leaving formal education early, he pursued composition through self-directed study before entering conservatoire training, completing degrees at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he recently returned as a Postgraduate Researcher. His research explores post-discipline practices in composition, and how non-expert or 'amateur' approaches to music-making can influence and reshape traditional and inherited ideas of composition. He is supervised by Richard Baker, Hollie Harding and Steve Potter.
His work has been performed around the UK and internationally by ensembles including the Carice Singers, CoMA London, EXAUDI, London Chamber Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Orkest de Ereprijs (NL). His work continues to gain recognition for its unique approach to composition.
© Kaupo Kikkas
© Kaupo Kikkas
Tonia Ko
Composer
Tonia Ko has collaborated with leading musicians across a variety of media – from acoustic concert pieces to improvisatory works with electronics. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Honolulu, she earned a DMA from Cornell University. Recipient of a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, she has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Koussevitzky Foundation and Chamber Music America. Recent works have been premiered at King’s Place London, Non-Piano Toy Piano weekend in Hamburg and Brooklyn Art Song Society in New York. Her practice follows aural, visual and tactile instincts, most prominently in Breath, Contained, an ongoing project using bubble wrap as a friction instrument. She has performed her concerto, Breath, Contained III with Contemporaneous, the London Symphony Orchestra and Luxembourg Philharmonic. Ko is currently Associate Professor in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Whan Ri-Ahn
Composer
Whan Ri-Ahn began his composition studies at the Interlochen Arts Academy in the United States before continuing at the Royal College of Music in London with Kenneth Hesketh, where he received the James Horner Scholarship Award supported by Sara Horner. He later studied with Michael Jarrell, Luis Naón and Gilbert Nouno at the Haute école de musique de Genève and completed his Master’s degree at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) with Frédéric Durieux, while also studying electronic music with Yan Maresz and Grégoire Lorieux. He also studied with Sir George Benjamin at King’s College London and privately with Unsuk Chin.
His music has been commissioned and performed by leading ensembles and orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Ensemble Modern and has been presented at Radio France’s Festival Présences (2023) and the Festival Ravel (2023). Ri-Ahn was appointed to the London Symphony Orchestra’s Helen Hamlyn Panufnik Composers’ Scheme (2024/25) and the composition residency at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (2025). He was nominated for the 2023 Le Tremplin Musical of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco and received the 2023 Marthe Depelsenaire Composition Prize of the Fondation de France, the 2024 Fondation Francis et Mica Salabert Composition Prize and the 2025 Ilshin Foundation Composition Prize. Having joined the Republic of Korea Army in November 2025, he is currently completing his military service.
Alec Jones
Composer
Alec Jones is a composer and tabletop cosmologist currently based in London. He studied composition at Durham University under James Weeks, Eric S Egan and Richard Rijnvos. His pieces show an interest in silence. His music has been recorded by ensembles such as Plus-Minus and EXAUDI, as well as performers like John Snijders.
Clare Duckworth
Violin
LSO First Violin, Member since 2014
Clare Duckworth studied with Richard Deakin at the Junior School of the RNCM and Mateja Marinkovic and Hugh Bean at the Royal Academy of Music. Having been lucky to receive fantastic training in the National Children’s Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and European Union Youth Orchestra, all of which she led, Clare went on to hold jobs with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the London Philharmonic (Co-Principal Second Violin) and the Royal Philharmonic (Principal First Violin) before joining the LSO as Sub-Principal First Violin in 2014.
She has coached the violin sections of the NYO, the EUYO and London’s RAM, RCM and GSMD, and served for three years as one of the LSO’s Vice Chairs. When not performing, Clare can usually be found in a book shop, art gallery or up a hill, either at home or (with a bit of luck) abroad.
Mabon Rhyd
Viola
A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (2021) and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (2019), Mabon has a busy and diverse freelance career as a violist and pedagogue.
Highly in demand as an orchestral player and chamber musician, he has performed as a Principal Viola with Britten Sinfonia, Sinfonia Cymru and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as No 2 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. An alumnus of the LSO String Experience scheme, he has performed with all five of London's major symphony orchestras.
Mabon is a founding member of the London Session Quartet. His work has taken him across the UK and internationally, with performances in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Estonia, Russia and Japan.
Originally from Eryri in North Wales, Mabon enjoys escaping to the mountains during his spare time. He is also a keen runner and (self-proclaimed!) terrible chess player.
Mabon currently plays on a viola of the Panormo School (c1800), generously on loan from the Tompkins Tate Musical Instrument Trust.
Amanda Truelove
Cello
LSO Member since 2007, Professor at the Royal College of Music
Amanda Truelove demonstrates a wide range of musical interests and has been a member of the LSO for many years. She studied extensively with Johannes Goritzki and Joan Dickson and also took classes with Jacqueline du Pré, Pierre Fournier and Bruno Guiranna. As a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician she made London debuts at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room and for many years enjoyed a busy concert diary in Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. Amanda is a highly respected teacher with a class of students at the Royal College of Music where she is a Professor. Amanda speaks fluent Swedish and has three sons.
© Kevin Leighton
Rachel Leach
Presenter
Rachel Leach was born in Sheffield. She studied composition, and her music has been recorded by NMC and published by Faber. She has won several awards, including the RPS award for best education project 2009 for One Day, Two Dawns, with English Touring Opera (ETO).
Rachel has worked within the education departments of most of the UK’s orchestras and opera companies. The majority of her work is for the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Rachel has written well over 20 pieces for LSO Discovery and 15 community operas, including seven for English Touring Opera.
Increasingly in-demand as a concert presenter, as well as presenting the LSO Discovery Free Friday Lunchtime Concert series, she regularly presents children’s concerts and pre-concert events for the LSO, LPO, Philharmonia Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal College of Music and Royal Northern Sinfonia.
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