June 2008

New Music’s New Advocate

lunar sax quartet joel garthwaite 

Joel Garthwaite talks about his new Publishing and Record Label Staunch Music, the latest news from Luna Sax Quartet and the LSQ New Music Competition.

What have you done since graduating?
Since graduating I moved to London to study for a Masters degree at the GSMD with John Harle and Christian Forshaw.  During my time at the Guildhall my saxophone quartet The Lunar Saxophone Quartet started gaining some press and publicity off the back of our FLUX tour, which featured an entirely new programme of commissioned music for saxophone quartet and piano.  This very welcome publicity lead to us being asked to record music from the tour by Delphian Records, with whom we released the album FLUX in Spring 2008.  We have also recorded Dave Stapleton’s amazing piece Catching Sunlight on his new record label Edition Records featuring himself on piano, Paula Gardiner (RWCMD Jazz Co-ordinator) on bass, Elliot Bennett on drums and Neil Yates on trumpet.  We were awarded an MBF ensemble award to help fund this project.  With the LSQ I am also now a member of Live Music Now! I have also been working with percussionist Dave Danford to compile an exciting programme of newly commissioned music for saxophone and percussion and we will be recording this music in the Summer of 2008 on my own record label Staunch Music.

As well as the above, I have worked with Sound Affairs on both the Ludwig and Entr’acte projects, I play alto saxophone in the Dave Stapleton Orchestra and currently hold saxophone teaching posts at Hampton School, London; Wellingborough School, Northants; I hold the position of Music Coordinator at Lyndhurst School, London and work for the adult music company Music in Offices.

What made you set up your own publishing business?
I have always been interested in the music industry as a whole and not just the performance side. I started Staunch in August 2007 with the simple objective of allowing me to record and release my commissions without the confines and pressures of larger record labels. Having worked closely with lots of contemporary music composers I realised that there was a huge amount of amazing music going unpublished and therefore being unplayed!  Because of this, I expanded Staunch’s original objectives with ‘Staunch Publications’ being created to allow me to publish this quality music.  I have a quickly growing music catalogue by composers including Eric Schwartz, James Williamson, Lucy Pankhurst, Andrew Keeling and extremely talented current RWCMD student Ashley John Long.

Tell us a little about the composition competition 
2007 saw the first LSQ New Music Competition sponsored by Sax.co.uk with students at thirteen different institutions submitting over thirty compositions for the competition.   With a brief to write a piece that encompasses the style and ethos of the LSQ, four entries were short-listed for a concert at The Warehouse, London where Andy Scott, Graham Fitkin and Gabriel Jackson picked James Williamson (RAM) to receive the first prize of a publishing deal with Staunch Music and his piece being recorded on the LSQ’s Delphian disc 'FLUX'.

The event went really well and the standard of entries was incredibly high. From the 4 short listed pieces the RWCMD had 2 entries with Mark Boden (2nd Place) and Ryan Yard featuring in the final performance at London’s ‘The Warehouse.’

What are working on at the moment and what is your next step with Staunch and your career?
At the moment I’m really busy working with the LSQ. As of November we will have two albums to promote at concerts and festivals all over the UK so we will be using this summer to concentrate on learning a whole new batch of commissioned music, as well as the lengthy process of short listing compositions for the final of this year’s LSQ New Music Competition.  I am performing on the main stage with the LSQ at Bryn Terfel’s Faenol festival in August as well as dates at Knighton Festival, The New Room, Bristol and St. Lawrence Church, Eastcote.  I am currently in the middle of publishing a new batch of pieces for print including James Williamson’s winning piece from the 2007 new music competition.  After that has been sent to the printers I’ll be trying to get to as many new music performances as possible to try and find more talented composers music to publish as well as recording my album with percussionist Dave Danford.

Do you have any advice for graduating/newly graduated students?
Remember that you started doing music/drama because you enjoyed it!  Although after you graduate Music or Drama will be your way of making a living, never let it become un-enjoyable. There are many different fields of work within each given subject area so try and choose one (or more!) that you are truly passionate about.

Don’t be scared of hard work.  The arts industry is competitive and unfortunately work won’t approach you until you have made a name for yourself the hard way, whether that’s by sending your CV to 100 different councils for a peripatetic teaching position or by approaching every single venue in London for a recital.  Get used to networking!

Finally, one thing my dad always taught me was to ‘never burn your bridges’.  This is so important in the arts world, you never know who might contact you to do a concert, recording or a teaching job etc. work sometimes comes from the most unusual places.  I once got offered a whole tour as a soprano saxophone soloist when someone who came to see a concert where I had an 8 bar orchestral solo told his promoter friend about me, so always be as professional as possible!