Composers

Below you will find short bio­graphies for the com­posers whose music we have per­formed. Listed with each bio­graphy are the works that we per­formed and, when avail­able, full audio of the live re­cording for that work. Please note that the bio­graphies may be out of date as they are only up­dated with each concert.

Hannah Ashman | Heather Bam­forth | Tom Coult | John Davies | Luke-Matthew Iveson | Francesca Le Lohe | Maur­icio Pauly | José Guillermo Puello | Steve Pycroft | Sam Salem | Richard Scott | Martin Suck­ling | Chris Swith­in­bank

Hannah Ashman

Hannah is 19 years old and cur­rently in her first year of a music de­gree at the Uni­ver­sity of Manchester. Her in­terest in com­pos­i­tion res­ulted in her spending her gap-year at Trinity Col­lege of Music, where she studied with Paul New­land and Ollie Leaman. Her mu­sical in­terests are ec­lectic, en­com­passing such di­versities as ex­per­i­mental Hip Hop artist Flying Lotus, De­bussy, and con­tem­porary Danish com­poser Hans Abrahamsen.

Works:

  • fo­cus­in­focu­sout­fo­cus­in­focu­sout, for flute, cla­rinet, drum kit and cello

Heather Bam­forth

Heather studied Music at the Uni­ver­sity of Manchester at un­der­graduate and post­graduate level be­fore going on to com­plete a PGCE. She now teaches very small people how to write and in her spare time en­joys per­forming on laptops. (www.myspace.com/heatherbamforth)

Laptop set:

  • fenix (1)
  • fenix (2)

Tom Coult

Tom is a third year stu­dent at Manchester Uni­ver­sity, and will begin a Mas­ters course next year. ‘The Candle’ is being per­formed on 16th May in York and 8th June at the RNCM. He has com­posed a score for a 2009 pro­duc­tion of Sinbad at the Camden Round­house and music used in ‘Is This Love?’, a 2008 short film. (www.tomcoult.com)

Works:

  • Avian Riots, for flute, cla­rinet and string quartet

John Davies

John is a Manchester-based pro­ducer, writer/arranger and mu­sical dir­ector who, having com­pleted a Mas­ters in Com­pos­i­tion in September 2009, now for­ages mainly in pop/soul/electro ball­parks. He dir­ects the Su­perfly Soul Col­lective, runs a live soul club­night called Are­Soul and plays bass for Karima Francis, a singer-songwriter from Blackpool.

Works:

  • Dub­steps, for string quartet

Luke-Matthew Iveson

Luke-Matthew (b.1990, Manchester) cur­rently studies at Birm­ingham Con­ser­vatoire, for a BMus in com­pos­i­tion, under the tu­ition of Joe Cutler and many vis­iting tu­tors. His works have been per­formed by the CHROMA En­semble, Sarah Le­onard & Robin Mi­chael, Row­land Suth­er­land and the East Mid­lands CoMA En­semble. Luke en­joys working with theatre and ex­ternal arts such as dance, arts and lit­er­ature. His theatre piece Ophelia:the death of was awarded joint Second Prize and the Audi­ence Prize in the 2009 Philip Bates Prize. The Nu­tri­tional Value of Dreams was re­cently work­shopped by Louis Andriessen.

Works:

  • I Don’t Know What To Do With My Life, for cla­rinet and kick drum

Francesca Le Lohe

Francesca is a second year music stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Manchester whose major in­terests are in com­pos­i­tion and eth­nomusico­logy. She is es­pe­cially in­ter­ested in the re­la­tion and cros­sover between the two fields. Francesca is fas­cin­ated with Ja­panese music and aes­thetics, which is a dom­inant in­flu­ence in her cur­rent compositions.

Works:

  • Waves on the ebb, for flute, cla­rinet and string quartet

Maur­icio Pauly

Born in Costa Rica, com­poser Maur­icio is cur­rently based in Manchester. He has re­cently been awarded the pres­ti­gious Staubach Hon­or­aria com­mis­sion for a new work to be premiered by Oslo-based en­semble Asamisi­masa at the 45th In­ter­na­tional Summer Course for New Music in Darm­stadt, Ger­many, in 2010. His new string quartet was premiered in New York by the JACK Quartet in Feb­ruary 2010. (www.mauriciopauly.com)

Works:

  • Cli­n­amen, cli­n­amen, cli­n­amen, for cla­rinet and string quartet

José Guillermo Puello

José is a Domin­ican com­poser cur­rently doing a Mas­ters in Com­pos­i­tion at Manchester Uni­ver­sity under the su­per­vi­sion of Camden Reeves, having done his un­der­graduate de­gree in Music at The Uni­ver­sity of Birm­ingham. He is cur­rently working on mer­ging Latin-American rhythms with Western con­tem­porary har­monies. On the 21st of May, 2010, Manchester Cam­erata will per­form Cojuelo Spirit at the Bridge­water Hall. (www.joseguillermopuello.info)

Works:

  • Aqueleyo-yo, for string quartet

Steve Pycroft

Steve is a drummer and composer/producer based in Manchester, UK. He re­cently com­pleted a Mas­ters in com­pos­i­tion at the Uni­ver­sity of Manchester, achieving a dis­tinc­tion, where, in 2008 he also achieved a first class hon­ours de­gree in music. Steve plays and writes a wide variety of styles, from or­ches­tral to dub­step. He has played at various venues around the world with the Riot Jazz Brass Band. The band has sup­ported Dizzee Rascal and The Streets. Listen to his music at www.stevepycroft.com and his myspace.

Works:

  • Raise Your Voice, for flute, cla­rinet, drum kit and string quartet
  • Richter VS Dragon, for en­semble and backing track

Sam Salem

Sam is a mul­ti­media artist and acous­matic com­poser whose music has most re­cently been performed/exhibited in Montreal (ICMC09), New York (NYCEMF), Berlin (SMC 08), Valencia (Di­gital Media 1.0) and around the UK and Scand­inavia (as part of the Wet Sounds ’09 tour). (www.osamahsalem.co.uk)

Works:

  • Public Bodies, for fixed media

Richard Scott

Richard keeps him­self busy com­posing elec­troacoustic music with mod­ular syn­thes­izers, im­pro­vising with Grutronic and fo­cus­sing on infra-red, ges­ture based per­form­ance tech­no­lo­gies. He has re­cently worked as Artist-in-Residence at STEIM, Am­s­terdam.

Works:

  • Ono­ma­to­poeia, for en­semble and live electronics

Martin Suck­ling

Martin writes music, plays the vi­olin, re­cently moved to Manchester and con­sequently spends a lot of time on trains. He is cur­rently writing some songs for the London Sin­foni­etta. These other folks have also played his music: LSO, BBC Scot­tish SO, DSO Berlin, Gri­meth­orpe Col­liery Band, RSC, Britten Sin­fonia, Aronowitz En­semble. (www.martinsuckling.com)

Works:

  • Pas­sacaglie, for cello and electronics

Chris Swith­in­bank

Chris is cur­rently com­pleting a Mas­ters in Com­pos­i­tion at the Uni­ver­sity of Manchester with the gen­erous sup­port of a Harry Clough Bursary. He works with both acoustic in­stru­ments and elec­tronic sounds and has re­cently had works per­formed at New Music North West, MANTIS Fest­ival and Wrexham Arts Fest­ival. Up­coming premières in­clude Wegen & Wald­stille for Ps­appha and Mik­rokonzert: I Swear I Saw the Sun Falling to be per­formed by Vag­anza at York Spring Fest­ival of New Music in May and at the RNCM in June. (www.chrisswithinbank.net)

Works:

  • This is Water!, for en­semble and tape
  • The Golden Lion Hotel, for per­cus­sion and electronics