Applications for the 2013/14 Scottish Music Centre Composition Marathon close on Friday 31 January. In advance of this date, the Centre’s announced the selection panel who will be responsible for granting ten lucky composers the opportunity to participate in this unique event, which culminates in a final performance of their work at The Arches, Glasgow.
The panel responsible for this process consists of Oliver Searle (Chair), Jennifer Martin, David Donaldson, Jacqueline Farquhar and Marc Yeats.
Longstanding Scottish Music Centre member and immediate past Chair, OLIVER SEARLE originally studied to become a classroom music teacher at Aberdeen University and in 2000, he moved to Glasgow, where he studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama with John Maxwell Geddes, gaining a Distinction for his Masters degree in 2002. He completed a PhD in composition in 2006, supervised by Gordon McPherson and has recently written works for the Paragon Ensemble, the National Youth Choir of Scotland, the Hebrides Ensemble, Psappha, Red Note, the Scottish Reed Trio, the BBC SSO, SYMPOSiA, the Bearsden Choir, NYOS, the New Music Players and the RSNO. In 2002, he received a silver medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians in London and in 2004 he won the Mendelssohn Scholarship.
Over the last few years, he has had works performed at festivals and venues in Oxford, Edinburgh, Manchester, Aldeburgh, Cluj-Napoca, San Francisco, Johannesburg, Verona and Berlin, with several broadcasts in Europe and Asia. Recent endeavours include a PRS for Music Foundation, 20×12 New Music Award, broadcast on Radio 3 as part of the Cultural Olympiad (nominated for an RPS Award) and a project for the Commonwealth Games in 2014. He is also frequently involved in the creation of music for theatre, has a lecturing post at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has recently completed a number of music projects for people with cochlear implants.
http://www.scottishmusiccentre.com/oliver_searle
JENNIFER MARTIN read Music at the University of Edinburgh and continued her research there, gaining an MPhil in Composition in 1996. She was then appointed Composer in Residence at Stewart’s Melville College and The Mary Erskine School and teacher of Composition at the City of Edinburgh Music School, while also lecturing in the Animation Department of Edinburgh College of Art, the Drama Department of Queen Margaret College and in the Faculty of Music at the University of Edinburgh, where she taught both Composition and Music in the Community. Jennifer has run creative education projects for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ensemble, Horsecross, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and local councils across Scotland.
In 2003 she was appointed Learning Manager for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, where she was responsible for devising and managing a wide range of educational initiatives, both in Scotland and internationally. She was part of the initial steering group that brought El Sistema to Scotland, spending time in Caracas, examining the teaching methodology and evaluating its potential. Having returned to a freelance career, her experience of music education and training has led to several consultancy projects, including the writing of a three-year professional development programme for the RSNO; devising education and evaluation strategies for the Scottish Ensemble and Hebrides Ensemble; the writing of a community music strategy for Edinburgh Napier University; and supporting the development of a new BMus degree in Music and Communities for the University of Aberdeen.
As a composer, recent works include The Sound of Me (Hear My Music, Daniel’s Beard), Blethering (Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama), Magnificat and Nunc Dimitis (St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Glasgow), Look in the Mirror (Stewart’s Melville College and the Mary Erskine School), Seeing Sounds (New Edinburgh Orchestra), Hearing Pictures (New Edinburgh Orchestra, BBC SSO/Radio 3) and Airborne for Mark O’Keeffe (principal trumpet BBC SSO. Jennifer is currently a National Companies Assessor for the Scottish Government and the Scotland Coordinator for Music for Youth. She has served as a Director on the Boards of Lung Ha’s Theatre Company and Drake Music Scotland and in January 2013, she was appointed Chief Executive of Hebrides Ensemble.
http://www.scottishmusiccentre.com/jennifer_martin
DAVID DONALDSON is a graduate of the SAE in Glasgow. His 16 year career has covered almost every facet of sound production from recording, producing and mastering live bands to his recent music productions for both commercial release and film.
He has enjoyed a long working relationship with Glasgow-born composer Craig Armstrong; programming, co-producing and providing additional arrangements on over ten films and various television, commercial and artistic projects. In 2005 he won a Grammy Award for producing and engineering the soundtrack for Ray, a biopic about the life of Ray Charles.
David has just finished working on Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and has completed his first work for Cryptic, an hour long requiem for counter tenor, string quartet and electronics. As one half of Mirror Music he, and Graeme Reedie, are currently working on their second album.
JACQUELINE FARQUHAR graduated with a BA (Hons) in Applied Music from the University of Strathclyde. Specialising in performance, she also studied music history, orchestration, composition and arts management. She won the university’s Alexander Stone Award for her final year Opera Recital. On graduating, Jacqueline worked as a vocal coach both privately and in theatre schools throughout Scotland, and was involved in several international projects, including the International Academy of Music in Nice. After joining the staff of Scottish Opera in 2008 Jacqueline worked in Administration, Finance and the Music Department where she enjoyed responsibility for the Management of the Chorus of Scottish Opera.
Jacqueline then joined Producing Art House, Cryptic, where she was responsible for project logistics and fundraising. She lead on coordinating the Cryptic Nights emerging artists programme and took on the role of Company Manager touring with productions to Mexico, Finland and a 26-performance run at the Edinburgh Festival. In 2013 Jacqueline took up the role of Development Manager at The National Youth Orchestra of Scotland where she is responsible for fundraising for the company’s varied projects including eight performing ensembles across the spectrum of jazz and classical music as well a variety of outreach projects.
MARC YEATS is a composer and visual artist. He was born in London in 1962. His intense music has been performed and commissioned around the world. He has worked with many distinguished performers, ensembles and musicians including Psappha, the London Sinfonietta, the Endymion Ensemble, Paragon Ensemble, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Tokyo City Philharmonic and Gewandhaus Radio Orchestra, among others with many broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio Scotland, European and US radio stations. Marc is Composer-in-Association with Thumb Ensemble (Birmingham UK), Composer-in Association with Manchester Pride (Manchester UK), Composer-in Association with Chamber Cartel (Atlanta USA) and Composer-in Association with SATSYMPH.
He was also an Arts Council England Specialist Music Assessor (2011-2013) and is currently Chair of DIVAcontemporary, an artist-led organisation committed to creativity and experimentation in the arts and practice-based research, working internationally, nationally and locally. Marc is a founding partner of SATSYMPH LLP. Recent large music commissions include: SATSYMPH’s on a theme of Hermes; an original work which fuses contemporary classical ensemble music and contemporary poetry in an entirely new and innovative way having a truly unique method of delivery via smartphone apps, sturzstrom, a large choral work commissioned by Coastal Voices as part of an umbrella project that explored the Jurassic Coast with newly commissioned compositions linking music and earth sciences through the voice. Performances included the premiere, 300 feet underground in Beer Quarry Caves, Devon; Lighthouse Poole and the opening ceremony of the Olympic sailing events in Weymouth and Portland, Dorset in July 2012.
Other commissions include a string quartet for the Corsham Festival, new works for Thumb Ensemble, Manchester Pride and Chamber Cartel, a brass quartet for Meridian Brass; oros for 8 voices commissioned by Auditiv Vokal, Dresden, Germany, and an orchestral commission for the Chicago Modern Orchestra for 2015 with many other works to be premiered and recorded in 2014 and beyond. Marc’s recent compositional research ad interests include unsynchronised music for ensemble and orchestra.
For further information or to submit an application, please contact Christopher Glasgow, Project Manager by no later than 5pm on Friday 31 January 2014: info@compositionmarathon.com / 0141 552 5222 or visit: http://compositionmarathon.com
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