The Poet’s Favourite Places - a virtual walking tour with poet John Clare

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Composer Julian Philips shares his ongoing creative journeys around the poet John Clare, focussing on his new work for voices and field recordings, The Poet’s Favourite Places completed in April of this year. This new work was developed during Julian’s 2023-4 sabbatical, and was conceived both around field recordings which Julian collected in Clare’s East Anglia in February 2024, but also a 1/4-comma meantone temperament, inspired by an early sixteenth century virginal. Julian will contextualise this creative research project within the larger span of his encounters with John Clare, but also share elements of the new work’s poetics and compositional design.

The Poet’s Favourite Places received its world premiere on 19 May 2025, in Milton Court Concert Hall, in EXAUDI’s acclaimed Exposure series, alongside works by Hollie Harding and Guildhall MMus composers. The concert was recorded by BBC Radio Three and subsequently broadcast as part of their New Music Show.

Speaker: Professor Julian Philips

Born in Wales and raised in Warwickshire, Julian Philips is one of Britain’s most versatile composers. A graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, his music has been performed internationally at festivals and venues including the BBC Proms, Tanglewood, Glyndebourne and Wigmore Hall, Welsh National Opera by international artists including Gerald Finley, Dawn Upshaw and BBC orchestras.

Julian has a particular affinity for vocal music, with acclaimed settings of Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, e e cummings and Langston Hughes. His operas include The Yellow Sofa and Knight Crew for Glyndebourne, How the Whale Became for the Royal Opera House, and The Tale of Januarie for the Guildhall School. He has also composed for ballet, notably The Snow Queen for English National Ballet, and his orchestral music includes All that remains commissioned and premiered by the National Orchestra of Belgium.

Julian is the Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where he was made Honorary Fellow in 2007 and conferred a Professorship in 2014. He was responsible for the creation of both a new Masters Programme in Opera-Making & Writing and a Doctoral Composer-in-Residence scheme in association with the Royal Opera House. His recent projects include Through Silence (oboe quintet), Melodys of Earth and Sky (instrumental transcriptions of folk songs collected by poet John Clare), and new commissions for the Little Missenden and Oxford Lieder Festivals. In 2022, NMC Recordings released a disc of Melodys of Earth and Sky, and Julian’s music was featured at the Presteigne Festival, including a theatrical concert work, Looking West, celebrating Vaughan Williams' 150th anniversary. Julian returned to Presteigne in 2024 with a new version of Melodys, premiered with actor Anton Lesser.

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