About Drew Hammond

I am a composer and musician based in Glasgow, Scotland. Born in Central Kentucky, I studied music at Guilford College in North Carolina and spent a large chunk of the 1990s touring in bands. Around the turn of the century, I moved to Glasgow, Scotland to study composition with Bill Sweeney. Since then I have gained a PHD in composition and have taught numerous music subjects at the University of Glasgow and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  I write music for a variety of instrumental and electronic forces. 

P r o j e c t s

Yince a Paradise

Yince a Paradise for unaccompanied chorus, commissioned by the Dunedin Consort and St Andrew's, voices is a lament for environmental catastrophe written for the Cop26 conference. The words were written in Scots by Scottish playwright Isobel McArthur.  During the tour I gave a series of pre-concert talks on being an artist and a composer in light of the climate crisis with composer, presenter and educator, Gareth Williams. 

Soliloquy 

Written for the Rookh Quartet, Soliloquy was premiered online during the pandemic at NE Scotland's Sound Festival. The piece was inspired by walks on the hills and beaches of Scotland, and opens discursively with an irregular series of statements from the quartet, linked rhythmically and harmonically, but each a fragment of a conversation. One of the players drops out from this conversation, playing a repeated muted note, which disrupts the flow, and slowly the others join a new sonic fabric. When writing, I was reflecting on these long walks, and the process whereby my egoistic, inward thoughts are gradually drawn outwards to the world around me.  

Drew Hammond - Soliloquy from Rookh Quartet on Vimeo.

Claude Debussy In Memoriam

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chamber Group premiered my work, In Memoriam at the Claude Debussy In Memoriam concert at the University of Glasgow Memorial Chapel  on 22 March, 2018, along with a number of pieces by fellow contemporary composers.

The impetus for the concert is to present contemporary works inspired by one of Debussy's most tantalising might-have-beens, the incomplete Sonates pour six divers instruments, of which he only finished the sonatas for flute, viola and harp; cello and piano; and violin and piano.  Works in the 22 March concert are written for the remaining ensembles of that unfinished collection: a trio of oboe, horn and harpsichord, and a quartet of clarinet, basson, trumpet and piano.  My piece, entitled Suite for Claude Debussy in Memoriam, is for the entire twelve-player ensemble. 

Here's the score: https://issuu.com/druford/docs/suite_cdim_rediced_...

Debussy's own sonatas from the incomplete collection, for flute, viola and harp; cello and piano; and violin and piano, were also performed at the concert.   

Composition Workbook

I developed this composition workbook using my composition students at the University of Glasgow as guinea pigs. In the workbook I outline what is for me the hardest part of teaching composition in higher education: how do you teach something that has no ultimate ethical boundaries?  The question of what is right or wrong, materially, well, that cuts to the nature of my concerns for most of my young undergraduates.  That is, that they think for themselves, and are uncompromising, but not in a way that is reactionary or ignorant, but in a way that stems from a need, as Cage put it, for poetry?  

Harmony Nerd Blog: The Nontransposeable Series

Check out my blog post on the Nontransposeable Series in which I explore all the circular, patterned divisions of our old friend IC5 - the circle of 4ths.