“It was important to write a piece that was about that friendship. More than just the collaboration itself, it’s really about those friendships, and the connections that you make with people; how we are all going to get together and have a great time. It’s going to be really fun and full of joy.”
Rebecca Galian Castello
PRXLUDES is delighted to be celebrating the second commission of our “5 for 5” Commissioning Initiative: our commitment to commissioning five early-career composers at the forefront of contemporary music in the UK, to celebrate five years of PRXLUDES’ work promoting and celebrating the most exciting new voices in contemporary music.
Our second “5 for 5” Commissioned Composer is Rebecca Galian Castello, whose work ‘Peach Fuzz’ premieres at PRX.LIVE on Friday 16 October at Chats Palace, London, and tours to The Nest, Chichester Festival theatre, in partnership with CFT on Saturday 7 November. PRX.LIVE and Rebecca Galian Castello’s commission are generously supported by The Hinrichsen Foundation’s Multi-Year Partnership, additionally supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
PRX.LIVE takes place at the following dates / places:
• Friday 16 October — Chats Palace, London (tickets available here)
• Saturday 7 November — The Nest, Chichester Festival Theatre, Chichester (tickets available here)
We’d love for you to join us there in celebrating today’s most exciting composers.
–
Rebecca Galian Castello is a French composer and performer based in London. Her work, often characterised as driven and immediate, draws from punk and rock genres and focuses on parameters of intensity, volume, texture and timbre. Rebecca has worked and performed with internationally acclaimed professionals including the Fidelio Trio, the Explore Ensemble, pianist Xenia Pestova Bennett, and Neil Luck. Recent projects include a commission by the London Charterhouse Museum, the self-release of 40-minute multimedia work The Undernetting, the Frank van der Wal Commission for Orkest de Ereprijs, featuring at Gaudeamus Festival 2026, and her American debut at the Bang on a Can LOUD festival in North Adams, MA, as part of the Bang on a Can Summer Residency programme. Rebecca studied composition at Trinity Laban with John Lely, Amir Konjani and Paul Newland, and at the Royal College of Music with Ed Bennett and Jonathan Cole, supported by the Charles Stewart Richardson Scholarship for Composition.
Rebecca is PRXLUDES’ second “5 for 5” Commissioned Composer — our commitment to commissioning five early-career composers at the forefront of contemporary music in the UK. Rebecca’s commissioned work ‘Peach Fuzz’, for bass clarinet, cello, percussion and fixed media, will be premiered by Standard Issue on the 16th of October at Chats Palace, London, as part of PRX.LIVE #2. Ahead of the premiere, Patrick Ellis checked in with Rebecca to chat about grooves, repetition, close collaborative relationships, and more…
.
Patrick/PRXLUDES: It’s been just over two years since we first spoke with you here at PRXLUDES. What has happened in that time professionally?
Quite a few things have happened. When I was talking to Zyggy two years ago, I had just received the Frank van der Wal commission from Orkest de Ereprijs’ Young Composers Meeting. So then I had to write that piece, and it premiered last year. It has since been performed quite a few times, which is really lovely — and it was performed at Gaudeamus Festival on the 11th of September.
Last summer, I went to the Bang on a Can Summer Festival in the US, which was amazing — as it had been on my bucket list for a long time to go and be a part of that course. I’m such a big fan of Bang on a Can; Michael [Gordon], Julia [Wolfe], and David [Lang] are such wonderful people, and it was an incredible three weeks of a waking dream where I felt so happy and everything was so good. I had a piece performed — Eejit Son — at LOUD Weekend, which is a festival that takes place at the end of the three weeks of the Summer Course. We also went to the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in upstate New York, where we did a performance of Terry Riley’s In C with all of the fellows and the Bang on a Can All-Stars — which was a lot of fun.
This year, I was a composing fellow with the Gabriela Ortiz Composing Studio. We had two weekly sessions for six months. I got to write for the Bergamot Quartet, who are a really lovely bunch of people — and they did such a good job of my piece.
I also became a composition mentor with an organisation called Arts Emergency, who are incredible — and I highly recommend that people check them out and support them in whichever way that they can (whether that is simply spreading the word about them or donating in any way possible). They bring arts education, tutoring, and mentoring to young people from traditionally underrepresented communities, where they wouldn’t have as much access to arts education, so they are really great. And then of course, being the 5 for 5 Commissioned Composer! That’s the cherry on top of the cake!
You’ve had such a busy two years, Rebecca! Have the Ereprijs and Bang on a Can pieces been your largest scale works to date?
I have previously written for an orchestra, so no — but to work with ensembles like Orkest de Ereprijs and Bang on a Can [was] just amazing. I think in total, there were eleven performers for Bang on a Can, and there were around fifteen musicians for Orkest de Ereprijs. That’s really the sweet spot for me, because it’s big enough that you can get a lot of sound out of them, but it’s small enough that you can go around and get to know people, and build a connection with them in some way that you perhaps couldn’t do with a large symphony orchestra.
Thinking about the instrumental forces in those groups, are they much more in line with what you would like to do?
I was thinking about this the other day, that there are instruments that I naturally feel more drawn to: the bass clarinet, the cello, electric guitar, percussion. There’s instruments like those that I really love with all of my heart.
But at the same time, I welcome anything and as far as instrumental combinations — the weirder, the better. -laughs- It is always a new challenge. And so for example with Bang on a Can, all of the ensemble pretty much made sense, but then you just have one violin — that was right next to an electric bass guitar — and so I had to think about how to balance this with the rest of the ensemble. -laughs- There are always ways to make it work; and I think that as long as you have that connection with the players and you get to know them, you will always find ways to integrate everything together.
.
Reflecting over this time period, what have been your main artistic developments? Are there things that you have become more fascinated by or perhaps more confident at as a composer?
I want to reassure everyone that I still love noise and I still love very loud sounds, which is something that has grown on me even more over the last couple of years. Doing things like Bang on a Can’s LOUD Weekend was great for me. It reinforced my conviction that this is what I need to be doing, and what truly resonates with me, what feels true to me. So I’m still pretty obsessed with sounds that are crunchy and fuzzy.
But I would say that I’ve become more confident with working with continuity a lot more than I used to previously. When Zyggy interviewed me two years ago, I was talking about how I worked with cut-up techniques, with each bar being quite different from each other and each bar existing on its own. I’ve thrown that approach out of the window over the last two years, and now I just try to find one really good idea and then develop the material around that over the duration of the piece.
Just trying to squeeze all of the juice out of that of a small cell or gesture — which is something that Michael Gordon at Bang on a Can really encouraged me to pursue… -Rebecca puts on an American accent- “Yeah, that’s great! Keep repeating it! Make it twice as long!” -laughs- I do think he’s right, there is something really valuable in that. If you find a good idea, why not just bask in it? That approach is something that I associate myself with a lot more closely, and it is now the way that I work.
Is there anything that you are not as focused on?
I would say that timbre is not as big as it used to be, for me… I am still really interested in it, but on its own is not enough for me anymore. So I have to combine it or associate it with something else. For example, within [a] little cell or idea that I’m going to develop, there can be some cool timbral aspects within that. But I really need to have it be supported by something else to give it a bit more substance for me to keep engaged with the material during the compositional process — and to keep engaged with the music as a listener, too.
Do you think that for you, writing in more of a continuous way has an effect on your materials?
I really do think so. There are people who can write in that cut-up way, where every bar is so beautiful and well thought out… I was not one of those composers. -laughs- I tried to do the best that I could, but really — if you take all of the bars in isolation — I don’t think that you could take each of those and repeat them forever like I do with my ideas now.
You mentioned that your interests have moved away from timbre, but are now pairing it with other parameters or facets. Could you tell me what those are?
Rhythm is the main one. I’ve always loved music that’s really driven — whether that’s a constant pulse going throughout the piece, or a rhythmic drive where you feel like it’s a machine or a mechanical groove that’s chugging along. I’ve always loved that in music, and it’s what I have always tried to do in my music as well.
I also always think about groove, because I think that music is meant to be fun. I hope that people have fun when they listen to my music. When you have something groovy that the ear can latch on to… That’s a very important aspect of my practice right now, and it is what I think about when I try to come up with that initial idea. That is usually the part that takes the longest for me in the composition process — where I am having to try a billion different things, until I have finally found something that clicks.
.
What grooves do you usually listen to which you try to bring into your own work?
Recently, I’ve written a piece for saxophone quartet that was commissioned to me by a friend that I made on Bang on a Can. It was for a sax quartet based in Los Angeles in the US, they came to me specifically to ask me for something that was really groovy and a bit of a bop — a “flash and trash” piece. I had never heard of that term before in my entire life, but I thought that it was just so funny. It’s just something that is really explosive and in your face.
I’ve always really loved ska music. Having grown up in north London, you can’t really escape it, and so I have always really loved that kind of music. Obviously, the saxophone sound is so prevalent on ska records, and it’s always just so mind-blowing to me.
I’ve also been listening to a lot of jazz records as well recently — mostly standards. A lot of The Rat Pack. In their songs, there are some really good grooves, such as ‘Too Close for Comfort’ — Sammy Davis, Jr.’s version of that is just incredible. It’s actually dangerous, because you start listening to it and you can’t get the grooves out of your head for hours and hours.
In terms of repetition, and finding a good idea that you can hang onto… A lot of classic, early 90s rap from the US has been really influential as well. The whole idea of sampling — finding something that is really good, and then that becoming the basis of an entire song. I’ve been listening to a lot of Nas recently; [and] The Game, which is just amazing. There’s a lot of Kanye West, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that anymore… -laughs-
When you establish your own grooves in your music, how do you play with the material to develop it over the course of the piece?
Usually with fairly simple ideas. There’s always an element of rhythmic or metric displacement at one point, because if you’re really focused on repetition and you are trying to play with rhythm, there’s got to be a displacement that keeps people on their toes at some points. But otherwise, it’s pretty straightforward, as most of my music is in 4/4 — 99% of my music is in 4/4.
I think that you can get a huge variety of rhythmic effects even if you stay in 4/4 for most of the time. It’s a pretty cool thing to explore, and it’s good to have that limitation sometimes when you write. I come from punk, where everything is in 4/4 — all music is actually in 4/4, everything else that we’ve been told is a lie. -laughs- As an ex-performer, I used to find it frustrating when you [got] handed a piece of music and the metre is rea;ly complicated, or the way that some of the rhythms are spelled out are convoluted. It takes you five minutes to sit down and rewrite it in a way that’s a lot simpler and is easier to read! I think that’s why 4/4 feels reassuring to me. In turn, I don’t want my players to freak out when they see my scores… -laughs-
.
We are excited that you’re our next 5 for 5 Commissioned Composer, and that we’re premiering your new work ‘Peach Fuzz’ next month with Standard Issue at Chats Palace. Could you tell us about ‘Peach Fuzz’ and what the driving force is behind it?
It had been a little while since I had the idea of writing a piece that sounds like the inside of a pub. And I thought that it was the perfect occasion to do it — I thought that the 5 for 5 Initiative would be a good space for exploration and for experimentation for those ideas. From there, I started thinking about what sort of sounds I could have. In the piece, I’m using junk percussion as part of the piece — so you have bottles, metal cans. There’s also fixed media with various sounds like bottle caps, fizzy drinks, pool cues and balls.
When I was writing this piece, I just wanted to do something fun. ‘Peach Fuzz’ is a really important collaboration for me, because I have known Standard Issue for quite a while, especially the three performers I’m working with [Michelle Hromin, Rebecca Burden and Toril Azzalini-Machecler] — some of whom I have been friends with for five or six years. That’s why for me, it was important to write a piece that was about that friendship. More than just the collaboration itself, it’s really about those friendships, and the connections that you make with people; how we are all going to get together and have a great time. It’s going to be really fun and full of joy.
On the note of knowing Michelle, Rebecca and Toril well — have you composed for any of them before?
I’ve worked with Rebecca quite a few times by now — probably on five occasions, she was involved with a lot of my projects. She’s an incredible performer and she’s a really nice person too, so it’s just a dream to work with her. With Michelle, I haven’t worked with yet, but I’ve known her for quite a long time, and we even lived together at one point, so I am very close with her.
Mine and Toril’s paths did cross quite a few times when we were at the Royal College of Music. I had been meaning to write him something for a few years and it was about to happen about two or three years ago and then the project fell through. So I promised Toril that I would write for him one day and now it is happening — I have kept my promise.
Knowing them all individually gives you more of an insight on how they operate as performers. Has your relationship with the performers had an effect on the writing?
Absolutely, it really goes both ways too. I think that it’s really precious to have a close relationship with people that you are working with, because everything is so smooth. I know what they like playing, and they know what sort of sounds I am looking for — because [some of them] have worked with me before — and so they know what it’s about. Having that friendship layer makes the communication even more telepathic. -laughs-
You’ve previously mentioned to us that it is one of your most ambitious works to date. What would you say are the aspects that make it your most ambitious?
For me, it’s the combination of all of the elements. They are all things that I have done before, but separately in different pieces. It’s not groundbreaking, none of the elements are truly groundbreaking — I’m not the first person to make a fixed media playback track, nor am I the first person to use metal cans or glass bottles. But the fact that these are coming together in that way makes it really interesting to me. There’s all of these considerations of how everything will fit together. That’s what I meant when I said it was really ambitious. But it’s also silly, because there are going to be kazoos in the piece — which I am really excited about. -laughs-
How have you found writing for the combination of cello, bass clarinet, and percussion?
I had the option to pick which instruments I wanted. It was quite a hard decision to make, because the performers in Standard Issue are all so great; they are all stellar musicians. But I ended up following my heart, going with people that I knew would produce the best synergy for this sort of vibe that I wanted to write for this piece.
I love writing for percussion, I think that it’s just so amazing. The bass clarinet is a fantastic instrument — and I like low instruments and registers, so the cello is brilliant for that. And so it was quite natural that I was drawn to these instruments. I think that the piece is going to have quite a low, Dutch sound world, which I love… -laughs-
Aside from the kazoos, is there anything that you can give away to our readers and audience members ahead of the performances?
The piece will be groovy, fun, entertaining and engaging. During the performance, you should listen out for the fixed media — because everything is built around those found sounds that I recorded. I think that [there] is going to be an interesting interaction between the fixed media and real time live sounds. I also like the way that it is going to be very DIY.
–
PRX.LIVE #2 at Chats Palace, London, featuring the world premiere of Rebecca’s new work ‘Peach Fuzz’, takes place on Friday 16 October – learn more and buy tickets at:
PRX.LIVE x Chichester Festival Theatre, featuring the second performance of ‘Peach Fuzz’, takes place at The Nest, Chichester Festival Theatre, on Saturday 7 November:
Learn more about Rebecca Galian Castello and her practice:
