University of York Music Press

Three Jennys was written especially for Jenny Porcas. The three miniature movements are entitled Spinning Jenny (based on the Lancashire folksong ‘Poverty Knock’ associated with the textile industry of the nineteenth century), Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummelaria) which twists and turns like the plant itself, and Jenny Wren, heard here in virtuoso voice! Three Jennys is dedicated to Jenny with affection. The first performance was given by Jenny Porcas for Purbeck Arts Week Festival, St. Mary’s Church, Swanage, 7th June 2014. 

Each movement of Jinny’s Haiku is accompanied by a print from Yoshitoshi’s series 100 Phases of the Moonand, a haiku by the master poet Basho. The four movements follow an unconventional seasonal sequence – Winter longing, Autumn wind, Spring mist and Summer dawn. The work was commissioned by Jinny Shaw and was premiered at Oxford Contemporary Music Festival on 18th November 2006. The work also exists in a version for solo oboe.

The New Oboe Music Project aims to promote existing new music for the oboe and encourage more composers to write for the instrument. Founded in 2015 by English oboist James Turnbull, the project has a number of aims:

• To commission new oboe repertoire by raising money through existing charitable foundations and crowd funding donations.
• To raise awareness of existing oboe repertoire written since the turn of the 21st century.
• To encourage emerging composers to write for the oboe by establishing the Léon Goossens Oboe Prize. The inaugural prize was in 2016 and is run biennially.