{"id":48132,"date":"2024-10-12T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-12T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ce4f9a2b-6973-47d9-8e03-e5290e4f7e7f"},"modified":"2024-10-12T12:07:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T10:07:14","slug":"its-given-me-a-laser-focus-theatre-composer-adrian-sutton-on-his-terminal-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/its-given-me-a-laser-focus-theatre-composer-adrian-sutton-on-his-terminal-diagnosis\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s given me a laser focus’ – theatre composer Adrian Sutton on his terminal diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Saturday, 12 October 2024 at 09:00 AM<\/p>

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Read on to discover how facing a terminal illness has given leading theatre composer Adrian Sutton a new outlook on life and work…<\/strong><\/p>

Who is composer Adrian Sutton?<\/h2>
If you\u2019ve seen War Horse<\/a><\/strong><\/em> or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time<\/a><\/strong><\/em> at the theatre then you\u2019ll have heard the music of Adrian Sutton. Emerging from a career composing for adverts, Sutton found himself creatively entangled with the Morris brothers. Music for Chris Morris\u2019s Radio 1<\/a><\/strong> show Blue Jam<\/em> brought the composer to the attention of director Tom Morris, who roped Sutton in to contribute to his brilliantly satirical Newsnight: The Opera<\/em> in 2003, followed by the 2005 play Coram Boy<\/em>. The\u00a0rest is theatre history.<\/p>
Composer Adrian Sutton<\/figcaption><\/figure>Music and mental health: what scientists have revealed about the connections between them<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>
A terminal diagnosis and a new ‘laser focus’<\/h2>
With a new album of Sutton\u2019s Orchestral Works<\/a><\/strong> performed by the BBC Philharmonic<\/a><\/strong>, we\u2019re invited to discover another side of the composer, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2022. At the heart of it is a Violin Concerto written for Fenella Humphreys, something he felt he just had to deliver, as he explained to me over\u00a0Zoom earlier this year.<\/p>
The best violin concertos of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>
\u2018I dithered about for many years, wanting to write one and never quite getting off my arse, because various other projects came into view,\u2019 Sutton tells me. \u2018Then the diagnosis happened. The thing about that \u2013 and it\u2019s one of the things that people who are in this situation pretty much all say \u2013 is you get a massive laser focus on what it is that you should and shouldn\u2019t be spending your time doing.\u2019<\/p>
<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Adrian Sutton’s Violin Concerto, performed by Fenella Humphreys and the BBC Philharmonic<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Sutton took inspiration from Richard Bach\u2019s cult 1970s novella <em>Jonathan Livingston Seagull<\/em>, a tale of a gull that decides it wants more from life than fishing with the flock and teaches itself to fly. It was a suprisingly spiritual lifting off point. \u2018It becomes sort of a transcendental story about self-fulfillment, learning things, bettering yourself and having a fulfilling life. I\u2019m not a religious person at all, but there are elements about it which are nourishingly spiritual.\u2019<\/p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/best-stage-musicals-of-all-time\">15 of the best stage musicals of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Adrian Sutton… ‘I’ve still got plenty in me yet’<\/h2><p>Such themes have undoubtedly become more important to the composer since his diagnosis, but he\u2019s adamant that the concerto isn\u2019t anything like a final word. \u2018I\u2019m not going to treat it as a swansong, because I feel like I\u2019ve still got plenty in me yet,\u2019 he says. \u2018The prognosis of my condition is obviously not great, but it\u2019s not something I\u2019ve asked for and I\u2019m deliberately, strategically, ignoring finding\u00a0out\u00a0about it.\u2019<\/p><p>With an unknown amount of time to play with, then, does Sutton feel a pressure to keep creating, to keep digging deep for just one more\u00a0great work?<\/p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/best-musical-theatre-composers\">10 of the best musical theatre composers<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul><p>\u2018There has been a little bit of tacet pressure that I\u2019ve put on myself, and on my partner,\u2019 he shares. \u2018It\u2019s such a tricky situation; on the one hand he\u2019s juggling the idea that he wants all of my time, whatever is left. Yet at the same time, because he\u2019s a fan of my music, he wants to see me produce as much as I possibly can so that there\u2019s a legacy. And some of that has rubbed off on me, so I find myself thinking, \u201cI really need to get this done\u2026\u201d But you can put too much pressure on yourself.\u2019<\/p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/best-classical-music-to-boost-your-mental-health\">Best classical music to boost your mental health<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">‘Music is a communal act, one that is central to our humanity’<\/h2><p>One of the things he did do after the diagnosis, apart from write the concerto, was organise a London concert of his music (a catalyst for the album project), and making music with others has now become more important than ever.<\/p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/music-about-mortality\">Can we empathise at any age with music about mortality?<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul><p>\u2018The business of writing dots on paper for real people to play in a real context is something that has become very much another laser focus. Music is a communal act, one that nourishes us and is so central to our humanity,\u2019 he tells me. \u2018I was struck the other day by the similarity of going to a gig, or concert, and going to a kind of church. It\u2019s this communal thing that you do, not because you know it\u2019s good for you, like some kind of medicine, but because it\u2019s a\u00a0genuine\u00a0experience.\u2019<\/p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/six-best-string-quartets-about-life-and-death\">6 of the best string quartets about life and death<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Adrian Sutton… ‘I’m proud of War Horse’<\/h2><p>Listeners to<em> <\/em>Sutton’s new album will experience a snapshot of what has been a varied career, from a suite of music from <em>War Horse<\/em> to <em>Short Story<\/em>, a new work which he wrote in the chemo suite \u2013 \u2018a very good place to get a lot of work done.\u2019<\/p><figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"War Horse | Official Trailer | National Theatre Live\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/edt2R9mqBw4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The National Theatre’s <em>War Horse<\/em>, featuring music by Adrian Sutton<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>But what does Adrian Sutton himself feel about his work when he looks back? \u2018A lot of what I have done has been applied music, but it\u2019s not any weaker for that,\u2019 he replies. \u2018I\u2019m proud of <em>War Horse<\/em>, because it enabled me to very effectively leverage my musical voice. And I\u2019m proud of the concerto, because it sums up who I really am, musically. I\u2019m proud of most things that I\u2019ve done; every composer writes some duffs, and there have been some, but theatre taught me to relax about that.\u2019\u00a0<\/p><p><em>Adrian Sutton\u2019s new album of Orchestral Works is released on Chandos\u00a0Records on 4 October.<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Saturday, 12 October 2024 at 09:00 AM Read on to discover how facing a terminal illness has given leading theatre composer Adrian Sutton a new outlook on life and work… Who is composer Adrian Sutton? If you\u2019ve seen War Horse or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the theatre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":48133,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"5"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/10\/its-given-me-a-laser-focus-theatre-composer-adrian-sutton-on-his-terminal-diagnosis.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/10\/its-given-me-a-laser-focus-theatre-composer-adrian-sutton-on-his-terminal-diagnosis-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/10\/its-given-me-a-laser-focus-theatre-composer-adrian-sutton-on-his-terminal-diagnosis-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/10\/its-given-me-a-laser-focus-theatre-composer-adrian-sutton-on-his-terminal-diagnosis-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/10\/its-given-me-a-laser-focus-theatre-composer-adrian-sutton-on-his-terminal-diagnosis-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/10\/its-given-me-a-laser-focus-theatre-composer-adrian-sutton-on-his-terminal-diagnosis.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/10\/its-given-me-a-laser-focus-theatre-composer-adrian-sutton-on-his-terminal-diagnosis.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Saturday, 12 October 2024 at 09:00 AM Read on to discover how facing a terminal illness has given leading theatre composer Adrian Sutton a new outlook on life and work… Who is composer Adrian Sutton? 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