Selected music creator for the 2023 Picture Gallery Composer-in-Residence Scheme
About the installation piece
This sound world is an immersive viewing of a pilgrimage to the sacred city of Jerusalem—a journey of Eastern peoples—through the lens of a British painter. The installation composition entertains a dialogue on the intersection between East and West; as such, the composition intentionally utilizes a Middle Eastern mode (maqam) that has shared pitch elements with Western musical scales. I took inspiration from the diverse musics and cultures of the people of the Judean desert. Levantine communities share overlapping musical commonalities, such as melismatic phrases and Middle Eastern modes (maqam), across forms of Arabic chant, Jewish cantillation, and Eastern Christian traditions.
The beginning materials mimic taqsim: an evocative, improvisatory form of playing based around the musical developments of maqam. As the piece progresses, the listener weaves in and out of crowds of pilgrims. Different travelers can be heard plucking and drumming at their own instruments, idly chattering in languages that distinguish them from their fellow neighbors in pilgrimage. These scattered ideas gradually become more coherent, unifying into longer melodies as pilgrims walk over the horizon to see Jerusalem’s Temple Mount/Al-Asqa Mosque. This music follows the contour of the golden Dome of the Rock, aurally guiding the pilgrims into the city and dispersing them across the bazaars, mosques, churches, synagogues, and yeshivas of the Old City of Jerusalem. The bustling Mahane Yehuda market can be heard: a central gathering point in the city marked by its stalls of produce and street musicians. The music soon returns to reflect airs of taqsim, with various travelers’ instruments and voices again becoming more distinct.
About Julianna
Julianna Hinton is a composer, pianist, and trombonist with a multifaceted musical identity. Her inspiration is drawn from varied interests, including classical contemporary genres; other areas of academia such as ornithology, physics, and mathematics; and Jewish, Middle Eastern, Magyar, Romani, and Asiatic folk music. Along with the Picture Gallery Composer-in-Residency, Hinton’s recent compositional endeavours include a competition win and premiere with the Royal Holloway Conductors’ Collective, feature in the Campus Echoes: A Royal Holloway Soundwalk project, a Special Mention for Young Artists from the Musica Prospettiva International Call for Scores, collaborator as an independent film composer for the FSU College of Motion Picture Arts, and world premiere composition with the Young Women Composers Camp. Simultaneously this year, Hinton has been working towards a social action project that combines Jewish and Arabic music, supported by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity and Valley Beit Midrash.
As a multi-instrumentalist, Hinton has a unique and intimate understanding of the colours, personalities, and performance practices of several instruments. Hinton performed as a trombonist for international brass artists and studied in chamber, solo, and orchestral settings in the international arena, including performances at the International Trombone Festival. On piano, she performed solo and collaboratively for prominent international soloists from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Brazil, and Colombia; among her honors are first and second prizes, respectively, for the ‘Music of the 19th Century’ and ‘Best Bartók’ competitions in the Great Composer Competition Series. At Royal Holloway, Hinton is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Corky McGuinness Award in Musicology, and she serves as a MMus Course Representative and contributor to the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Student-Staff Working Committee for the Performing and Digital Arts school.
