{"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":"2026-09-05T23:47:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T23:47:33","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-1\" 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-2 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;line-height:1.5\">Old Rags \/ Past Haunts<em> is dedicated to Ronan Apcar, for whom the piece was written. &#8216;Rags&#8217; refer both to the African American musical style &#8216;ragtime&#8217;, of which syncopated or \u2018ragged\u2019 rhythms are a key stylistic component, and also to a &#8216;sewing together&#8217; of fragments, many of which allude to music that grew out of ragtime, such as stride piano (Fats Waller, James P Johnson, Art Tatum et al.) and 1960\u2019s ragtime revivalism. There are also allusions to twelve-tone music. Although my dad joyfully introduced me to recordings of Fats Waller when I was a kid in the 1970\u2019s, the<\/em> <em>purpose of the piece is also to try and 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;<\/a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/talkback-burnback\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"1675\">&gt;<\/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. &#8216;Rags&#8217; refer both to the [&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":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3084,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomasmeadowcroft.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2838\/revisions\/3084"}],"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}]}}