'Encounters with British Composers', a new book by Andrew Palmer, contains interviews with around 40 British composers on how they work, how they live, and what, if anything, 'British music' is. There's an interview with me from about 18 months ago inside (that's me second from the left on the bottom row of the cover), alongside interviews with many more...
Later this month I am spending a week at LOD Muziektheater in Ghent, Belgium, at an opera-writing course called 'Looking Forward/Looking Back'. It's being run by the ENOA network of European opera academies, and led by playwright Martin Crimp. This is the second opera workshop I've attended with Martin, after a week with ENOA last year at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. Also...
I have been commissioned by London Sinfonietta to write a new piece for 15-piece chamber orchestra, to be performed by the Sinfonietta conducted by Martyn Brabbins at St John's Smith Square on 1 June 2016. The concert is programmed around the world premiere of Harrison Birtwistle's Duets in a Frame, and also features Francisco Coll's Liquid Symmetries and Tansy Davies' Falling...
The score for my Four Perpetual Motions for ten players is now on sale from Faber Music. I'm very grateful to the estate of László Moholy-Nagy for allowing me to use his wonderful painting Komposition A XXI on the cover. The piece was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society and first performed by members of the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Rüdiger...
The Aldeburgh Festival is happening this month, and my new orchestral song cycle will be premiered on the 13 June by soprano Claire Booth with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by George Benjamin. For Beautiful Caged Thing, commissioned by the festival, I have extracted lines and phrases from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and arranged them to form three...
From today, I am starting a residency hosted by the Britten-Pears Foundation at the former home of Imogen Holst (pictured here with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears) in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. I will be staying in the property, located at Church Walk in the centre of Aldeburgh, for five weeks and will work on two upcoming pieces for 2016 – my new...
I have been commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra to write music for a new radio play by Vivienne Franzmann, and to turn the music into a standalone orchestral work which will be performed by the BBC Philharmonic. Five composer/playwright pairings are being commissioned – myself with Vivienne, Aaron Parker with Francesca Martinez, Nina Whiteman with Esther Wilson,...
The Britten Sinfonia will premiere my new piece for string orchestra, 'My Curves are not Mad', on the 20th March. The piece's title comes from a quote in Henri Matisse's 1947 book Jazz where he asserts that the inventive and organic shapes and curves of his cut-outs are conceived always with reference to plain vertical lines. The piece was commissioned...
I'm delighted to have been commissioned by Aldeburgh Music to write an orchestral song cycle for the 2015 Aldeburgh Festival, to be premiered by soprano Claire Booth with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by George Benjamin. The programme will also feature Wagner's Siegried Idyll, Benjamin's A Mind of Winter, Boulez's Mémoriale and Ravel's Piano Concerto, featuring festival director Pierre-Laurent Aimard...