Maria Minguella is originally from Barcelona, but has been living in Cork for a long time. She finished a Master's Degree in Music Composition at University College Cork, Ireland, in 2010. She also holds an MPhil in Geography and has ten years of experience carrying out Social Inclusion and Equality Policy research. She is interested in voice and instrument compositions in contemporary music, in song writing, deep listening, pop, hip hop and other genres. One of her artistic aims it to merge themes of equality, social exclusion and poverty into instrumental and lyric music composition.

Nottingham, a piece for prepared piano, bass clarinet and spoken voice, is an example. The text was taken from Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Picket's book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. For more information about their work, visit their Equality Trust website. In addition to the powerful message of the text, the instruments are used quite effectively. Although the bass clarinet part does require an extended-range instrument for a handful of pitches, there is no use of the altissimo register, making the part quite accessible. The preparation of the piano is quite simple and involves common objects such as ping pong balls and marbles; the part itself is not terribly difficult. The work has a duration of approximately 10 minutes.

Extended-range instrument required. Score: 22 pages, spiral bound; Publication sold with three copies of score, one for each performer.