“As soon as war is declared it will be impossible to hold the 
poets back… Rhyme is still the most effective drum”

- Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944), French Dramatist from “La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu” (1935)

‘Fanfare & Three Poems’ was composed for the British Trombone Society Composers’ Competition 2020. The work is 
written for trombone quartet with a drum kit accompaniment.

When composing the work, my aim was to write music that 
would contrast in a standard concert programme for the regular audience member but could also introduce a modern listener, 
who may not regularly attend live art music performances, to 
western art music. To do this, the suite borrows much of its 
rhythmic impetus from electronic dance music and other modern music styles. 


The work is set out as a suite containing three separate character studies preceded by a fanfare. Each movement develops the material found in the original fanfare in an alternative fashion. Following the short, energetic fanfare are three movements. Each borrows its structure from three forms of poetry: Blank Verse, Villanelle and Tanka.

The opening Fanfare acts as our first movement. Set out in ternary form, it serves as a ‘tongue in cheek’ introduction to the work as a whole.

The second movement, Blank Verse, is set out in five ‘verses’. The movement follows traditional iambic pentameter throughout.

The third movement, Villanelle, is a slow movement that follows the traditional structure of the poem of the same name. Five tercets are followed by a quatrain.

The final movement: ‘Tanka collection', is a fast paced finale showcasing the technical ability of both the trombones and the drum kit structured in the form of a series of tankas. A tanka poem consists of five units with the following pattern of onji (phonetic units): 5-7-5-7-7. The first part of the pattern, 5-7-5, is called the kami-no-ku ("upper phrase”) and is the origin of the haiku. The second part of the pattern, the 7-7, is called the shimo-no-ku ("lower phrase”). The movement simply takes the pattern of onji and reduces the syllables to beats in a bar, with a first phrase with a bar of 5/4, 7/4, 5/4, followed by a second phrase consisting of two 7/4 bars, creating a collection of tanka poems.