{"id":2838,"date":"2026-07-26T19:51:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T19:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/?page_id=2838"},"modified":"2026-07-27T20:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:38:19","slug":"old-rags-past-haunts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/old-rags-past-haunts\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-left has-contrast-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-044e517e1c539d204bbd58a46ea7218c\" style=\"margin-top:-45px;margin-bottom:-25px;font-size:clamp(1.25rem, 1.25rem + ((1vw - 0.2rem) * 1.364), 2rem);font-style:normal;font-weight:100;text-transform:none\"><em>Old Rags \/ Past Haunts<\/em><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-secondary-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f76312ec3c83e0380b7f40ccdd699f5b wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-bottom:20px;font-size:0.75rem;font-style:normal;font-weight:100\">first performance: Ronan Apcar, The Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House AUS November 2025 &#8212; commissioned by Ensemble Offspring &#8212; instrumentation: piano, bluetooth speaker, samples &#8212; Duration 10&#8242; \/ 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-top:-10px;font-style:normal;font-weight:300\">Old Rags \/ Past Haunts<em> is dedicated to Ronan Apcar, for whom the piece was written. Rags refer to the early twentieth century African American musical style of ragtime that is referenced in the piece, of which syncopated or \u2018ragged\u2019 rhythms are a key stylistic component. It also refers to the construction of the piece, that is a sewing together of bits and pieces that reference music which developed out of ragtime, both stride piano (Fats Waller, James P Johnson, Art Tatum et al.) and 1960\u2019s ragtime revivalism. There are also references to twelve-tone music via jazz chord upper extensions. Although my dad introduced me to recordings of Fats Waller when I was a kid in the 1970\u2019s, the<\/em> <em>purpose of the piece is to serialise memory.<\/em> (TM)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-f56f613f wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hDIdUtAqmvw?si=PqosvzlNtswLABNE\" title=\"YouTube video player\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"100%\n\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"1\"><\/iframe>\n<br>\n<br>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large wp-duotone-unset-1\" style=\"margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:20px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"791\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/oldrags_detail1-791x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2841\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7724732141199191\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/oldrags_detail1-791x1024.png 791w, https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/oldrags_detail1-232x300.png 232w, https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/oldrags_detail1-768x994.png 768w, https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/oldrags_detail1.png 876w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 791px) 100vw, 791px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:clamp(1.25rem, 1.25rem + ((1vw - 0.2rem) * 1.364), 2rem);font-style:normal;font-weight:100\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/cradles\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"1980\">&lt;&lt;<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/talkback-burnback\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"1675\">>><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Old Rags \/ Past Haunts first performance: Ronan Apcar, The Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House AUS November 2025 &#8212; commissioned by Ensemble Offspring &#8212; instrumentation: piano, bluetooth speaker, samples &#8212; Duration 10&#8242; \/ 2025 Old Rags \/ Past Haunts is dedicated to Ronan Apcar, for whom the piece was written. Rags refer to the early [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2838","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2838"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2912,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2838\/revisions\/2912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}