MEDIA

The Reviews Hub on Scene Unseen

The Oxford Culture Review on A Berlin Kabaret (Old Fire Station, Oxford)

Kathimerini Newspaper on Indian Summer from Antonis Hatzinikolaou’s album Music of Memory (NMC)

COMPOSER

Disappointing Child from Scene Unseen

Nightclub Romance from Scene Unseen

Disappointing Child and Nightclub Romance from Scene Unseen

This collaboration with writer and singer Jessica Walker is an hour-long theatricalised song cycle, which incorporates elements of cabaret, contemporary art song, musical theatre, jazz and music hall. Written together during lockdown, and filmed at the Stapleford Granary, this semi-autobiographical piece joins Jess on a journey of discovery about her identity, including the secret at the heart of her Jewish heritage and the family she never knew. The piece was released online as a film in 2022, directed by James Dacre and filmed by David Lefeber. We performed it live at London’s JW3 in the spring of 2024.
Produced by Royal & Derngate and English Touring Opera

I Didn’t Know I’d Had My Time from Songs for Our Times

I Didn’t Know I’d Had My Time from Songs for Our Times

Joseph Atkins, composer and piano
A song I wrote with Jessica Walker that formed part of Songs for Our Times, a filmed concert commissioned by the Lichfield Festival in 2020, at the height of the first lockdown. Filmed at Blackheath Halls by Leon Lopez, under strict COVID conditions, the 40-minute concert, a mixture of original songs alongside works by Jacques Brel and French singer-songwriter Barbara, explores themes of loss, displacement and anxiety for the future. In this number, a singer looks back on her life and realises her time is up.

Threnody and Blues (from Shooting the War)
Joseph Atkins, composer and piano
Threnody was part of the score I wrote for the 3-part BBC4 series, Shooting the War. It explored the lives of amateur filmmakers during World War II through the footage that they captured. This piece of music underscored harrowing footage courageously shot within German concentration camps. The second extract was composed to accompany domestic and romantic home front scenes. The score was conducted by Darren Bloom, and in Threnody, Oliver Coates is the solo cellist.

Remember / Romance: Extract
This piece was originally composed for Shooting the War but was later repurposed as a dance composition, choreographed by Kath Waters for Stratford-based gap-year theatre course, Year Out Drama. In this wartime inspired dance piece, soldiers say farewell to their loved ones on the railway platform. An exploration of fear and hope, and love and loss, the piece fused contemporary choreography with social dance styles.

Mud, Sweat and Tractors: Opening Credits and Chaconne
This composition underscored the opening credits of Mud, Sweat and Tractors, a 4-part BBC4 series that charted the 20th century history of British agriculture. The title music was inspired by the industrialisation of farming and the motorisation of agricultural technology but scored for an ensemble that nostalgically evoked the British pastoral tradition of composers such as Vaughan Williams and Holst.
The second extract underscored the end of the series’ second programme. It follows the Payn family, a smallholding growing tomatoes on the island of Jersey. Unable to compete with the pressure of supplying supermarkets for increasingly diminishing returns, the programme ends with poignant shots of the family dismantling their greenhouses and incinerating their tomato vines.

Sweet Swan of Avon
This a cappella choral piece was commissioned by the Globe Theatre to open their community musical event, A Concert for Winter in 2015. The text is by Ben Johnson, a brief passage from his poem in memory of Shakespeare:
Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appeare,
And make those flights upon the bankes of Thames,
That so did take Eliza and our James!

Opening of I Never was a Quiet Girl (Rehearsal Recording)
This song appeared in Not Such Quiet Girls, a play by Jessica Walker that explored the overlooked lives of women on the frontline in World War 1. The production, which featured 3 actors and the women from the Chorus of Opera North, interspersed music hall and propaganda songs from the era, to bring these stories to life. This song, the one original composition in the show, appears at the end of the play. It explores the legacy these pioneering women’s lives have left, and the tragedy that working rights afforded to women in a time of national crisis were so quickly rescinded once the war was over. This show was a co-commission by Opera North and Leeds Playhouse. The lyrics are by Jessica Walker, and Laura Prior the singer.

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers: Extract
This song features in Liza Pulman Sings Streisand, an ongoing concert project featuring Fascinating Aida’s Liza Pulman, for which I am orchestrator, arranger and musical director.
Back in 2018, we gave three special concerts in collaboration with the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band. I specially reorchestrated the programme for these concerts, and we played at the Liverpool Philharmonic, the Darlington Hippodrome and at the Durham Brass Festival.
We recorded two songs with Brighouse and Rastrick to promote the concerts, including this one.

My Father: Extract
Our follow-up to Liza Sings Streisand was an album and tour project, The Heart of It, a more loosely connected set of songs – focusing on unfairly overlooked songwriters, lesser-known gems by established artists, or playful reinventions of classics. This is our take on Judy Collins’ My Father, taking its folk origins as inspiration, and giving it a more contemporary spin. The album was recorded at Peter Gabiel’s Real World Studios, and the album is produced by Chris Porter.

If I Only Had a Brain: Extract
Also, from The Heart of It, this classic song from The Wizard of Oz is rescored as a playful jazz waltz, leaning into the playful nostalgia of a favourite childhood film.

Nobody Does it Better (with Liza Pulman, orchestration Joseph Atkins)

Nobody Does it Better (with Liza Pulman, orchestration Joseph Atkins)
Taken from a live performance of The Heart of It, our show to accompany the album, in January 2023 at the Other Palace, London.