Page 39 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

Sometimes she would improvise with the dancers non-stop for 20 minutes. “Then
some of them asked me to write pieces and Robert Cohan did as well. Little by little I
started thinking that maybe I could do something with composing. I’d been sneaking
in some composition classes at the Academy and gradually it came to be the full story.”

Jamaican music and its distinctive rhythms have certainly influenced her, but that was
only a beginning. “I’ve always been trying to find, for want of a better word, my own
voice,” she says. “The first composer that took me by storm was Bartók, when I was
learning the piano and I came across his Mikrokosmos. That had a big impact.” She has
never had much patience for prevailing trends in contemporary music: “If something
is considered ‘cutting edge’ enough, then everyone’s incredibly excited about it – but
its real content doesn’t seem to matter.

“I’ve taken myself away and decided: to hell with everybody, I will write what I want to
write. And if people are interested, good; if they’re not, well, I don’t care! In my first

years, I was more concerned with whether something sounded enough like ‘modern
music’ – ‘Do I dare put that major chord in there? Is it too old fashioned?’ But I don’t
care any more.”

Alberga and Bowes first met through mutual friends at the Academy. Twenty years ago
they moved to Herefordshire: “I’m always inspired by nature,” she says. “We lived in
London for years, but whenever I went out to the country, my heart would lift as soon
as there were green fields, trees and streams. Also, I wanted to take myself away from
the politics [in London’s music business]. I wanted to concentrate on writing for the
sake of the music, to find some way of mining what I felt I could give.”

What else inspires her? Bowes certainly does: she has written two concertos for him
and together they have recorded some of her chamber music. “But you can take
inspiration from anything,” she adds. “In workshops with students, I say that if you’re

really into writing music, even looking at linoleum can inspire you.”

Alberga is the first to acknowledge that the upswing of “interest in women and Black
people” has been making a difference to her recognition. “I hate to say it. And it’s a

shame that some of us have had to wait around for years and years before it was
possible. But yes, unfortunately, I think it has helped. I didn’t want to shout about any
of that. I wanted to produce the best work that I possibly could, hoping that it would
stand on its own merits.”

“I’m not a political fighter,” she says, “so my attitude as a Black person has always
been just to live my life as best I can, without ranting and raving about about being
Black. I hate this division of races. I grew up in a culture where there was racism;
when I look back now I realise that there were little strands of racism going on. But
Jamaica was a complete potpourri of races. I had friends and acquaintances from
every race when I was growing up, and after a while, you just don’t see the colour of a
person’s skin. They’re simply a person.”