william sweeney

I think for me, my approach to notation has partly been formed by trying to represent the material; the kind of sounds and influences I’ve tried to absorb from folk traditional music (various sorts) and of jazz, and trying to find a way of representing these on the page, so that the players — well, I hope it’s suggested that they don’t play it in the [classical exactness of playing] we’re all brought up with — but in some ways, sometimes, making it impossible to do that.¹

Professor William Sweeney (he/him) is a Scottish composer, clarinettist, and previous lecturer in composition at the University of Glasgow. His studies at the Royal Academy of Music with Alan Hacker (clarinet) and Harrison Birtwistle (composition) undoubtedly shaped his compositional approach, his notation cleverly navigating the interplay between notational innovation and performance practicality. Sweeney’s love of Scottish traditional and jazz music permeates his compositional practice: he marries precisely notated Western ‘art’ music with more freely structured, improvised music, genuinely melding traditions rather than amalgamating them as disparate elements. This approach brings about notational challenges that are particularly interesting and useful to various discussions on this blog.