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heather_roche

@heather_roche

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New music and improv clarinetist;
Clarinet Tutor @imd_darmstadt
Creator and Developer of multiphonics.app

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Artist spotlight: Heather Roche @heather_roche

How can a winter landscape become a source of warmth, colour and optimism?

At hcmf// 2026, bass clarinettist Heather Roche performs the UK Premiere of 'slanted light' (2026), a new work by composer Kari Watson @kari__watson inspired by the fleeting beauty of bright winter afternoons in Chicago.

As sunlight cuts through the cold grey landscape, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow across treetops and buildings, Watson finds a starting point for a piece that captures the warmth and colour hidden within the depths of winter.

Written specifically for Roche, the work draws on her research and writing to explore the bass clarinet's extraordinary range of textures and tones. Focusing on the register key to destabilise and colour pitches in the bass register, Watson creates a distinctive sound world shaped by subtle shifts in timbre and tone.

📅 Monday 23 November, 12:40pm
📍 St Paul's Hall
🎟️ Free entry

Discover the UK Premiere of slanted light at hcmf// 2026. Find out more via the link in our bio.

Photo Credit:
Heather Roche © Sam Walton by @heather_roche

As raucous and as easy as a dyad fingering gets here.

Also if you're playing this the easiest way is to balance the clarinet on your leg and use your right hand thumb to play that trill key. And then give it a good strong blow :)

How did this one work for you?

Also if you're looking for it in the app it's Bb-435, you can use the number search or the fingering search to find it quickly in multiphonics.app by @heather_roche

Happy Hallowe'en! 🕷️

Speaking of great American imports to the UK (nice segue right?!) @einbond wrote this fantastic piece for me way back in 2012 and I'm going to be playing Resistance (for prepared bass clarinet and electronics) again on the 12th of November as part of @lontanoensemble.

I always loved this frenetic mix of different kinds of air sounds, slaps, multiphonics and key noise and it's really special to come back to a piece I spent so much time with so long ago (doesn't always happen in new music!).

Also very much enjoyed using my clip mic to get a little bit of extra spooky bass clarinet #asmr. 😅🎃

Check out Lontano's website for more info on all the concerts that week which will be taking place at The Warehouse in London!

And if you want a sneak preview you can also hear all of Resistance on my first solo album, Ptelea, available on @nmcrecordings by @heather_roche

Come hear the whole thing at @citystgeorgesmusic's Performance space in London next Tuesday the 20th at 7pm. Tickets are a fiver (link in my bio).

From @tremblap's amazing piece for contrabass clarinet and electronics, like light through ice. Also tunes by @amber_priestley and @eden_lonsdale ! by @heather_roche

Collaboration with composers is the best. ❤️ Yay for @hardinghollie by @heather_roche

Spectral-esque runs with the amazing acoustic of Ambika...

Had a few minutes to practise some of @euchargravina's piece and these delicious spectral runs before my gig today in the belly of the whale, sounds soooo nice with this long reverb in the space 🤤

Come hear them in context (in a different but also excellent space) at @lsostlukes tomorrow! The whole programme is AMAZING. by @heather_roche

The penmanship of this score is so gorgeous!

Currently learning Olly Wilson's Echoes for clarinet and electronics for Always Already There @barbicancentre in a few weeks as curated by the magnificent @elainemitchener1, and obsessed with Olly's handwritten score.

I once nearly got cancelled for saying on twitter that I thought all composers who were able should have a go at hand writing scores but I stand by it, there's so much personality here and I just love his handwriting when he does things like write "turn the page here" - or "reel the tape forward" - if he could only see us now! by @heather_roche

Artist Spotlight: Zöllner-Roche Duo

Accordionist @evazoellner_accordion and clarinettist @heather_roche bring their adventurous approach to new music to hcmf// 2026, with a programme that showcases their remarkable versatility and the expressive possibilities of two instruments in close conversation.

At the heart of the programme is the World Premiere of 'East', the latest work in Composer in Residence Lauri Supponen’s @svppis cycle exploring the cardinal directions. Built around the interacting gravities of a pair of chords, the piece considers how we place ourselves in space — and how simply knowing where north or east lies can change our experience of the world around us.

Julie Zhu’s @zooliejoo ‘Nadir aux pommes’ takes a more playful turn, blurring live performance and video in a work inspired by Jacques Rivette’s cult film 'Céline et Julie vont en bateau'. Expect distraction, unexpected encounters and the watchful presence of a goldfish.

Completing the programme is the UK premiere of Martin Rane Bauck’s ‘sondern die sterne, die sterne der Erde’, a work of luminous detail and quiet intensity inspired by the wonder of summer nights and the enduring presence of the stars.

📅 Saturday 21 November, 7:45pm
📍 St Paul’s Hall
🎟️ Standard £25 // Solidarity £32.50 // Kirklees Resident £23 // Under 30 £8

Link in bio

Photo credit:
Zöllner-Roche Duo © Sam Walton
Julie Zhu
Lauri Supponen
Martin Rane Bauck by @heather_roche

One of my favourite contra techniques. I pick a note in the second register (here's it's the B right over the break) and I irregularly release and press the register key, while really leaning in to the multiphonics that start to happen. It feels a bit like revving an engine (I may have "vroom vroom" written into the score I'm working on this week but I think the composer will be ok with that).

It's quite unpredictable although I'm also adding to that unpredictability by allowing it to overblow a little bit sometimes.

Shame it needs so much darned air and I haven't quite figured out to how to circular breathe without it breaking in a not-particularly-interesting way. A work in progress!

Using a @woodwindninja diagram for my little animated register key move here here :) by @heather_roche

Crazy Eb clarinet multiphonic of the day: this is wild.

Let me explain: it's quite common in multiphonics for extra pitches to appear when the multiphonic sounds that I can't isolate. (I usually don't even notate these when I put them into the app to avoid confusion for composers. I think it's confusing enough to understand how we can pick out multiple harmonics on most multiphonic fingerings)

But these extra notes usually appear WITHIN the existing chord. But with this little guy, there's an extra D that manifests BELOW the dyad as it is. A lower note! It's incredible! You may actually need headphones to hear it properly as it is rather subtle, but it's there. I must have played this fingering 10 times to hear it.

And the crazy thing is I don't hear it when I play the same fingering on the Bb clarinet.

Aaaanyway I'm still working away on the Eb chart for multiphonics.app - getting close now, I've got 175 multiphonics, want to try to have 225 before I make them live. by @heather_roche

Happy back to school time with multiphonics.app.

Is this the term/semester you write a new piece for clarinet?

Well then, what does your composition pencil case need more than multiphonics, I ask you. ✏️

I was thinking about creating an actual ad - but I basically only want to spend the money I make from the app on running it (or paying for my time so I can spend more days each month researching and adding more multiphonics 💕 hello my actual dream job). Also this ad is just too niche for what insta offers. ANYWAY all that's to say: please share with your friends.

I am not offering institutional subscriptions (anymore) as this product is too niche for big libraries where you study unfortunately. But at only $5 a month it's extremely reasonable: basically buy me a coffee and you the composer get a huge huge huge database of amazing clarinet sounds to play with :)

Happy honking (as my partner says to me every time I go to work on the app 😅) x by @heather_roche

Sometimes the best way in is to just hit that random button again and again until inspiration strikes. I'm playing the multiphonics live here but obviously recordings are included on the app.

I got quite a few difficult and fragile ones but they're all still working pretty well on the bass clarinet.

Try it out with a free 7 day trial on multiphonics.app :)

Have you found anything unexpected using the random multiphonic feature?

(I actually added this feature after the app launched, thinking it wouldn't be that useful but now I find myself playing with it all the time, and more than a few composers have reported the same :) by @heather_roche