In the Albert Hall 2016
Welcome to the website for Rick Birley
On this site is posted a selection of compositions, pictures [paintings & drawings] and poems by Rick Birley
If you would like to contact me, to comment, to ask a question, or whatever, then please feel free to fill out the form below. I will endeavour to reply promptly.
- click on whichever page you want to go to. Many of these pages have sub-menus.
- press the F11 key for a full-screen view, and "control +" or "control -" for zoom control. As this site is a wide site you need to zoom down to 75% to get the full page.
- use the "Page Up/ Page Down" keys to navigate quickly up & down a page
- pressing the "home" key will return you instantly to the top of the page (and therefore to the menu)
- if you are playing a piece of music, this will cut out when you leave the page. If you wish to listen to an audio-file on one page whilst visiting another page, just open the other page in a new tab [right clicking gives you this option]
- for most of the pictures, a single click (on the image itself) will present either a full-screen image (this certainly works well for some of the 'landscape' orientated pictures) or at the very least a better view - the background becomes dark.
NB In order to get the maximum quality of sound it is best to use a good pair of headphones when listening to the sound files on this website
On this site I post some of my music, a few pictures and the occasional poem. The music is for the most part played using 'artificial' sounds, that is 'played' using a sample library - in the case of most of the compositions posted here I use is EastWest sound library , which I find gives a more realistic effect than anything I have so far encountered.
Where a good live recording is made, I will of course use that, but the vast majority of my work is unperformed. I love writing for orchestra, so despite only rarely hearing any of it played, I continue to compose symphonic music.
There are a few live recordings here too - I am indebted to those who have taken the trouble to perform my music over the years. To these people I offer my thanks.
In the absence for the most part of any live performances, I have created this website to be my own 'virtual' concert hall, my gallery and my publication pages: welcome as audience!