Compose for Harp | 2025

Joseph Graydon
Passerelle

Passerelle was written after crossing a long bridge in northern Spain, where the sense of movement forward seemed to touch upon a quiet endlessness. The piece begins with a simple diatonic melody and a syncopated figure that gradually loses stability, drifting into loose, droning tones before gathering shape once more. The performer moves through these shifting environments, tracing a delicate balance between motion and stillness.

Joseph Graydon

Biography

Joseph Graydon is a composer from South Wales, now based in London. He studied composition in Wales before continuing at the Royal Academy of Music and London’s Guildhall School, where he is undertaking doctoral research. His music is guided by an interest in intuitive structures, experiential ambiguity and the tension between clarity and dissolution, often informed by phenomenological thought and the visual arts.

His works have been performed by EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, ICTUS Ensemble (Brussels), Plus Minus Ensemble (London), UPROAR New Music Ensemble (Wales), violinist Darragh Morgan, Rothko Collective, and have been featured at Finland’s Musiikin Aika/Time of Music Festival and KlexosLab (Spain). Graydon’s compositions inhabit fragile sonic spaces in which shifts of texture, silence, and memory shape the perception of musical time. He has received the Turner-Cooke Composition Award and the Francis Chagrin Award.