Sam Longbottom: Apricot Green Slip

Below is a quote from David Attenborough on Lucy Rie from Omnibus in 1982: '[The potter] Lucie Rie uses one particularly distinctive style of decoration that immediately identifies a pot as hers … She starts by painting the raw, unfired clay with an oxide –in this case, manganese. It will fire to a rich chocolate brown; she then scratches lines through it … This scratch decoration, called sgraffito, is only one of the techniques that she uses. Her glazes are subtle and varied. Often she offsets traditional earthy ones – browns, yellows, whites – with startling bands of brilliant colours: greens, golds, reds, and blues … The colour of her pots comes not only from their glaze but from the body of the pot itself. This one is being made from two separate lumps of different clay that were placed together on the wheel and then thrown, so that a spiral of slightly different colours will appear in the pot when it’s fired … Another of her decorative techniques, inlay, is in effect the opposite of sgraffito. The lines are scratched not into the glaze but into the body, which is subsequently covered with pigment. The pot is then washed repeatedly so that the colour of the pigment will appear in the lines alone. Sometimes the effect is simple and delicate. Sometimes the inlay is so complex that the whole surface of the pot is transformed.' Note by Sam Longbottom Michelle Hormin clarinet Oliver Pashley clarinet Heather Roche clarinet Alexander Roberts clarinet Sam Longbottom is a Manchester-based composer making experimental music for concerts and installations with found, homemade and traditional instruments. Much of his work explores the imperfect, unusual and unexpected sounds of automated systems and acoustic instruments, of mechanising glitches and peripheral noises. His music has been featured at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Sonorities Festival, in Nonclassical concerts at the Southbank Centre and St John’s Church (London), Manchester Art Gallery and broadcast on BBC’s New Music Show. He has previously been a Britten Pears Young Artist, a Manchester Camerata Ruth Sutton Fellow, a resident at Villa Ruffieux (Switzerland) and worked with artists and groups including Angharad Davies, The House of Bedlam and CoMA. Recorded live at LSO St Luke's as part of the Soundhub Showcase on 22 April 2026. #LondonSymphonyOrchestra #ContemporaryMusic #ChamberMusic ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subscribe to the LSO's channel: http://bit.ly/LSOsubscribe Subscribe to LSO newsletter: https://smarturl.it/lsonewsletter Follow the LSO on: Instagram:   / londonsymphonyorchestra   Facebook:   / londonsymphonyorchestra   TikTok:   / londonsymphonyorchestra   Twitter:   / londonsymphony   LinkedIn:   / london-symphony-orchestra   Website: https://lso.co.uk/ Apple Music: http://geni.us/yH0sXY Spotify: http://spoti.fi/291cCk0 LSO Live: https://lsolive.lso.co.uk/