The Royal Academy of Music recently announced that John Adams will join their staff as a visiting Professor of Composition: John Adams, one of the world’s leading composers, has joined the Royal Academy of Music faculty as a Visiting Professor. His commitment cements a relationship that began in 2012, when he conducted concerts at New York’s Lincoln Center and the BBC Proms…
Category: Press Release
British Composer Award Winners Announced
The winners of the 2016 British Composer Awards were announced last night at a ceremony at BFI Southbank, London. Here’s the complete list, with information about each piece and, in some cases, audio links. (All information from the BCA website) AMATEUR OR YOUNG PERFORMERS The Monster in the Maze by Jonathan Dove Commissioned by London Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence within…
Composition Opportunities for Emerging Composers
If, like me, you’ve entered a few composition competitions in your time, you might be interested in this survey (the link follows the description): There are few ‘emerging’ composers active today who will have not taken part in a competitive composition opportunity. Masterclasses, residencies, commissions and workshops regularly require a panel to whittle down dozens of applications to just a…
Martyn Brabbins announced as new Music Director of ENO
Conductor Martyn Brabbins has just been appointed Music Director at ENO, the latest attempt to stabilise the troubled opera company (for more thoughts on this from me, see here). From the ENO website: English National Opera (ENO) has today, 21 October 2016, announced that British conductor Martyn Brabbins will become Music Director of the Company with immediate effect. An inspirational force in…
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, 18th–27th November
The programme for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, summarised by Artistic Director Graham McKenzie: This year’s Festival is undoubtedly characterised by the bringing together of often quite disparate forces, to create new sounds, new experiences, and new approaches to music making. Perhaps this is best evidenced in the pairing of roaring saxophonist, and the founding father of European free improvisation, Peter…
Wien Modern, 30th October–20th November 2016
This year’s Wien Modern programme summarised by its new Artistic Director Bernhard Günther: Where do we come from? Where are we going? And where the heck are we, anyway? These are the final questions that form the focus of the first edition of Wien Modern under its new artistic direction. Music has always dealt with big questions such as the quest for…
Boulez Memorial Service
A nice post from Universal Edition, with some photos: The memorial service for Pierre Boulez at the Saint-Sulpice church in Paris was attended last Friday by the French prime minister Manuel Valls, the culture minister Fleur Pellerin as well as the former culture minister Jack Lang. The musician Daniel Barenboim spoke of Boulez’s legacy as a man of the future interested…
SaM Commissioning Survey 2015
Members may remember Sound and Music’s commissioning survey from last year, which received a fair amount of gloomy press coverage. My own reaction was a little more positive, though maybe a little contrary; I would, of course, like to see composers paid a lot more. Sound and Music is currently running the survey again, which should give the first hints as to whether the situation…
Arts Council England capitulates over ENO Funding
A bit of good news for anyone interested in the future of ENO. For the last couple of years Arts Council England have been implementing vicious cut to the funding of ENO, one of our most innovative opera companies. In a press release today, however, they announced ‘special funding arrangements’ for the organisation, effectively an enormous capitulation. The release is…