Tara & Portrait for Tara

The composition TARA for Solo Bassett Horn was written in 2001 for the Dutch clarinetist Tara Bouman. PORTRAIT FOR TARA is an extended ensemble version of the same music.

The German music magazine „Neue Zeitschrift für Musik“ (02/2004) wrote about the composition TARA: What we often miss in new music, we can find here: ease and unforcedness, playfulness and humor with a twinkle in one’s eye.”

Tara Bouman has performed this piece more than 30 times in concerts and recorded it on her solo album “Contemporary.”, released by AKTIVRAUM with support from the Deutschlandfunk, Cologne. The seven movements of TARA are titled: “energetic, masculine”, “feminine, gentle, very quiet”, “childlike, cheerful”, “the bear”, “nasty-conciliative”, “Tara’s flight” and “Tara’s encore”.

This solo piece has become the foundation upon which the ensemble piece PORTRAIT FOR TARA was composed, a commission by Django Bates for the Festival FuseLeeds in 2004, to be written for the London Sinfonietta under the direction of Martyn Brabbins. PORTRAIT FOR TARA is a suite of 18 minutes with many different moods and expressions. “I have elaborated the seven movements of TARA and composed transitions connecting one movement to the next. It has become my most detailled composition to date (2003).”

You can oder the music any time here: music