Last summer I took part in a recording project gathering the complete guitar works of renowned English composer Michael Finnissy. On this occasion, I made my second commercial recording of Nasiye (1982, rev. 2002) for solo guitar — the first was released ten years ago on my CD Shrouded Mirrors.

The project, led by British guitarist Sam Cave and recorded by John Croft in a London church, featured the presence of the composer himself, who turns 80 in March 2026. The album will be released by the British label First Hand Records to celebrate that anniversary.

Nasiye encapsulates many of Finnissy’s compositional traits: fragmentation, abrupt transitions, and an almost filmic sense of montage. The piece unfolds through sudden contrasts of texture and density, creating a constantly shifting topography of tension and release.

For the performer, this demands an intensely embodied awareness of gesture and space, where every movement on the instrument carries structural significance. During the recording, I had the chance to discuss interpretation and performativity with Michael — and it was both a challenge and a privilege to revisit the piece, exploring new interpretative possibilities.

The piece closes with a dance reminiscent of Kurdish folk music:

Finnissy’s score offers a remarkably rich field for interpretation. Yet within REPaMS, the focus also extends toward experimentation — a paradigm shift from interpretation, as proposed in MusicExperiment 21, the ERC project led by Paulo de Assis (who also supervises REPaMS) at the Orpheus Instituut. Stay tuned to see how REPaMS continues to approach experimentation.