First Steps with Sieves:  Òrthros (Morning Mass)

Haris Kittos (Royal College of Music, UK)

Òrthros (‘Morning Mass’) for voice and piano, was composed in 2004 for Jane Manning O.B.E. and pianist Lenio Liatsou. It is a setting of the homonymous text by Greek surrealist poet Andreas Empeirikos, which immediately provided a specific inspirational source for its musical ideas and form. Additionaly, due to limited time for its preparation before the scheduled premiere, it does not present great technical demands.  Thus, it seemed suitable to combine it with my ongoing research in the Xenakis’ Theory of Sieves, where, while composing, I observe, reflect and criticise on how and to what extent, by developing and/or elaborating the use of Sieves and non-octave scales, I can integrate them into my own ways of composing: at that point, it was necessary to proceed to a creative stage within a simple project framework as a start, as
various kinds of non-octave scales were already produced but they had not been applied yet in a finished work. This means that the importance of the piece (eventually premiered on November 16th 2004, Telogleio Institute, Thessaloniki, Greece) lies mainly in its relation to the focal point of the above research (non-octave scales, Sieves) which determined to a great extent the way the text was set. Thus, there will be an explanation of how the non-octave scales were produced in the first place, a description of the composition of Òrthros and, last, a brief presentation of how my understanding and use of the Sieves have evolved since then.

Haris Kittos was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. In 1978, after finishing his studies in Music and Fine Art, he came to London for postgraduate study in Composition in Trinity College of Music, with Andrew Lovett and Daryl Runswick. In September 2001 he obtained the MMus in Composition with Distinction at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied with Diana Burrell and at present he is a Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the Royal College of Music, under the supervision of Julian Anderson and Dr Darla Crispin, fully funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. His music has been performed in various venues in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and the U.K. and it has been commissioned and/or performed by international calibre artists and ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, Corado Canonicci, CO.M.A., Gareth Davis, Paul Goodey, Rolf Hind, Lenio Liatsou, London Sinfonietta, L.S.O. Quartet, Jane Manning O.B.E., Sarah Nicolls, Solaris Quartet, Nick Veliotis, Sarah Walker.