Q&A with Will Harmer

Earlier this summer we were delighted to announce the publication of a new group of madrigals, written some 450 years or so after this partsong style first became popular! The composer of Three Madrigals* is Will Harmer, a recent graduate of the National Youth Choir’s ‘Young Composers’ scheme, who has brilliantly melded his own modern, upbeat perspective with a much-loved historic genre, while preserving and celebrating all the charm and joys of the original.

In addition to being a composer, Will is also a professional singer and pianist. We invited him to reflect on his musical experiences to date and his responses reveal a fascinating range of interest across diverse styles.

Has music been an integral part of your life from an early age?

Yes, I would say so! My mum sang in several vocal groups in the Cambridge area – I remember enjoying going to carol services and there was even an occasion when her group sang madrigals on May Day morning (an early seed for Three Madrigals perhaps?!). I started learning piano when I was around seven, and from then on, music became a big part of my life and eventually something that I wanted to pursue as a career.

When did you first have an inkling that composing might become such an important part of your life? And have there been any people who have especially inspired you along your journey?

I started composition quite young, almost as soon as I began piano. Improvising at the piano seemed like second nature to me, so much so that I was occasionally told off for not doing my scales instead! My first piano teacher, Thanea Hodges, encouraged me to start writing my ideas down on manuscript paper. I still love sketching ideas on paper to this day!

One of my early highlights as a composer was writing a fanfare for Aldeburgh World Orchestra for the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay in Suffolk, when I was part of Aldeburgh Young Musicians. To see that music come to life and to hear the enjoyment of the crowds at the torch relay event was very special and inspired me take my composing journey a stage further.

As a teenager, I had lessons at Junior Guildhall with Jeffery Wilson, who really expanded my ideas about music and always had interesting and entertaining stories which helped me to grow a lot as a person and a musician more generally! He got me interested in jazz harmony, which has become a big element in my compositional vocabulary.

You appear as a professional musician in three different roles – composer, singer and pianist. Have you, to date, appeared in all these capacities in a single concert? If so, did you enjoy this experience or, if not, would you prefer to avoid doing so?

I can think of one occasion, in 2022. I played piano for my own choral composition in an Oxford Youth Choirs concert in which I also sang in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. I think I may even have been conducting in that same concert! It was quite the task to keep the different plates spinning, but I enjoy being kept on my toes like that! It was a very rewarding time working with OYC during the year after my undergraduate studies, and I hope to work with youth choirs again in the future.

If you had a time machine, to which era and location would you wish to transport yourself in order to experience first-hand the music and musicians of the day?

I would love to experience the early jazz scene in New Orleans, to immerse myself in the amazing melting pot of different styles. One of my favourite albums growing up was my Dad’s CD of Jelly Roll Morton’s music! Louis Armstrong is a favourite of mine too.

Are there any composers or musical styles that you just don’t like?

I tend to be cautious in making any final judgements on composers or musical styles, as it can take quite a while to get to grips with unfamiliar territory. Having said that, I definitely struggle with some of the complex abstract music of composers like Boulez, Stockhausen and Ferneyhough. Experiencing a live performance is really beneficial for that type of music.

What music is suggested most by whichever streaming platform you use most regularly?

It’s quite a random mix of things! Definitely some contemporary jazz artists like Tom Misch, Alfa Mist and Phronesis. In terms of more classic artists, you’d find some Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell… then at the other end of the spectrum, plenty of Renaissance choral music and Messiaen!

Which four musicians (from the present or from the past) would you most like to invite to join you for a night in the pub?

Ooh, tricky question!!

I’d love to pick Bach’s brains for sure and he would surely have good taste in beer!

Mendelssohn was a very happy soul by all accounts, and he would love to meet Bach too I suspect.

To mix things up, I think Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald would be fantastic company and I bet they’d have some good stories too.

Will Harmer is a London-based composer who often draws on improvisation, poetic stimuli and natural phenomena in his music. He was a National Youth Choir Young Composer for the year 2023–2024 and his compositions written during his residency can be heard on the NMC Records National Youth Choir Young Composers 5 album, released in January 2024*.

Will studied composition at Worcester College, Oxford with Robert Saxton, and is currently studying with Morgan Hayes for an MA at the Royal Academy of Music. He combines composition with an active career as a pianist and singer, performing frequently in song and chamber recitals, and singing with groups including St Martin’s Voices – most recently on tour in the USA – and Genesis Sixteen.

https://www.willharmermusic.com/
https://stainer.co.uk/composer/will-harmer/

*See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb7G_4LFqGQ&list=OLAK5uy_l1MVr7BWNTUF0ZfxMPsnDxojZXZ9xQL4A (Tracks 2-4, 7)