March has been a busy month, finalising all of my portfolio work and binding all of my scores. This is a long process of checking and altering details of each of the scores to ensure continuity in notation throughout my portfolio.
Starting the month off with a focus on finalising a few pieces of work has meant that there is not a lot left to finish for my portfolio hand in at the beginning of May. The next step for me to work on was to start writing the commentary that goes with each of the pieces I am submitting in my portfolio. This gives me an opportunity to explain the processes that I went through to complete each of my compositions.
Towards the middle of the month I began to struggle with motivation so gave myself some time away from my desk and computer to visit the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to see the ‘Too Cute’ exhibition create by Rachel Maclean. This is an artist that I looked at for my A level art. I found that this experience really helped me to become focused and it also gave me a lot more inspiration and ideas for both new and current compositions.
Birmingham Art Gallery ‘Too Cute’ – 2019 
Birmingham Museum – 2019
I had a visit this month from a close friend from back home. This gave me an opportunity to relax and not have to be concentrating on composition for the weekend. I think that it is very important to give yourself breaks from work, whether that is composition or work for other classes like harmony and aural. We spent the weekend pampering ourselves and going on a few nights out in Birmingham.
Five Guys – Birmingham Bull Ring 
Cat and Jess
This month I have been involved in composing music with a team of composers for an element of the Flatpack Film Festival 2019. I am working with two other student composers to create the music for the ‘Power of Ten’ film by Rae and Charles Eames. We decided on using a string quartet and using a large amount of glissando to represent the direction of movement in the video. After having a workshop session with the other groups giving feedback we decided to focus a lot more on the video and having a connection with the audio. This helped us to create a second contrasting section when the direction of movement in the video changes.
This month also gave me the opportunity to have one of my pieces performed in the Birmingham New Music concert. I chose to enter my piece ‘Postcard Paint’ which is for solo piano. To read more about this project Click Here…
Gina McDonald – performer for ‘Postcard Paint’
Catherine Mole 