News

sound Festival / Red Note commission set for first ever UK New Music Biennial

  • Kadri Soerunurk

  • New Music Biennial 2013 - logoStephen Montague to create new children’s work

  • Zinnie Harris to create the text from stories sent in by children from across the Commonwealth

  • To be presented as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games celebration

  • sound also a partner in Teta-a-Tete’s unique skate-boarding choral project


The partnership between sound, Scotland’s leading New Music festival, Woodend Barn and the acclaimed Red Note Ensemble continues in a new commission from composer Stephen Montague, which is to be part of the UK’s first ever New Music Biennial. Montague will write a new children’s work for 6 musicians and narrator based on tales sent in by children from different countries across the Commonwealth, which will be rewritten by award-winning playwright Zinnie Harris. The work will be premiered at Woodend Barn in Banchory (Aberdeenshire) on Friday 30 May 2014 at 6:30pm, followed by further performances at the South Bank Centre in London and in Glasgow as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games celebrations. The work will also be broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and recorded by NMC Records. The children’s stories will be sourced through one of Scotland’s major development charities, SCIAF’s, international partners. The commission was one of twenty announced by the PRS for Music Foundation at London’s South Bank Centre this morning.

“sound has been working with Red Note since the Ensemble was established and we are delighted to continue our partnership in this exciting new commission from Stephen Montague,” says Fiona Robertson, sound Festival Director.

“2014 is going to be an amazing year for Scotland as the Commonwealth Games are staged in Glasgow. What better way to celebrate this great international event than to bring together young people from across the Commonwealth in a new work of art.”

John Harris, Red Note Ensemble Chief Executive, added "We're delighted to be partnering sound Festival to perform this new commission by Stephen. He's a great composer and we're looking forward so much to working with him and presenting his work. It'll be really interesting to see how he approaches the stories that the children bring and weaves his music around and within them."

sound is also a partner in one of the more active of the New Music Biennial, commissions. Blending skateboarding, choral singing and the unique acoustic of skate parks, Tête à Tête and composer Samuel Bordoli will team up with skaters and community choirs to make a real noise in London, Aberdeen and Glasgow.

The New Music Biennial builds on the success of New Music 20x12, a music commissioning programmethat saw more than 250,000 people experience new music from leading figures in the fields of contemporary classical, jazz and folk music. Beginning in January 2014, the first edition of the New Music Biennial has been developed in partnership with Creative Scotland, Arts Council England and the British Council.  The 20 brand new commissions selected from over 130 proposals will receive premiere performances in 2014 across the length and breadth of the UK.  All twenty pieces will also be featured at two weekend showcases hosted by London’s Southbank Centre (4-6 July 2014) and Glasgow UNESCO City of Music (2-3 Aug 2014) and on BBC Radio 3. NMC Recordings will be releasing each piece of new music via digital downloads.

The works selected for the New Music Biennial cover a wide range of genres, reflecting the diversity and richness of musical life across the UK - from contemporary classical, folk and jazz to world music, urban and electronic.

Vanessa Reed, Executive Director of PRS for Music Foundation, said: “As lead funder of new music in the UK, we’re constantly inspired by the imagination and quality of the many composers and commissioning organisations we support. The New Music Biennial gives us the opportunity to celebrate this creativity by presenting outstanding new music – in any genre – which has the potential to inspire audiences across the UK. “

CelebratedScottish musician, Dame Evelyn Glennie, who was a member of the judging panel, added: “There is no shortage of talent, imagination and creativity in the UK and the excellent applications to the New Music Biennial have proved this.”

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Notes for Editors


sound is the North East of Scotland's festival of new music. It is an initiative of Woodend Barn and the University of Aberdeen which operates as a network of local and some national organisations. Following a pilot event, "Upbeat" in 2004, the first festival was launched in November 2005. sound is now an annual event, which aims to make new music more accessible to audiences of all ages and backgrounds by presenting an eclectic but very broad range of contemporary music - classical, traditional, popular, jazz, experimental - through a wide array of events including concerts, talks, electroacoustic installations, and workshops. As well as programming its own events, sound operates as an umbrella for a range of concerts, workshops, masterclasses and performances programmed by other organisations in the North East. Dame Evelyn Glennie, James MacMillan and Rohan de Saram are current Patrons of the Festival.

Red Note


Red Note is a Scottish-based professional music ensemble, dedicated todeveloping and performing contemporary music to the highest standards, and taking the music out to audiences around and beyond Scotland.The ensemble was founded in 2008 by Scottish cellist Robert Irvine, and is now directed by John Harris (Chief Executive) and Robert Irvine (Artistic Director). Red Note performs the established classics of contemporary music; they commission new music; they develop the work of new and emerging composers from around the world; and they work hard in new spaces to find new audiences. Their performing ensemble is drawn from the deep talent pool of Scottish new music expertise, and they count amongst their players some of the very finest performers working in the UK today. Red Note made its debut in May 2008 with a recording of Eddie McGuire’s Carrochan Suite for Delphian records, and since then the ensemble has rapidly gained profile and support.

Red Note undertakes a Spring and Autumn season each year in Scotland comprising tours, site-specific work and collaborations with other companies, and runs a regular new music series showcasing the work of new composers (Noisy Nights and Noisy Words) in the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. They are also extensively involved in the education sector, particularly at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, and at Glasgow University. They are also actively developing collaborations and new work with companies abroad.Red Note is delighted to have been appointed Contemporary Ensemble-in-Residence at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, and an Associate Company of the Traverse Theatre.

Woodend Barn


On the edge of Banchory in Aberdeenshire, Woodend Barn is a hub of creativity, hosting a diverse programme of music, theatre, comedy, dance, film, children’s events, art exhibitions and workshops. We are one of the leading arts centres in Scotland and Aberdeenshire's only professional multi-arts centre and independent art gallery.  In September 2012, Woodend Barn celebrated the 20th anniversary of the community play which planted the seed which grew into today's thriving, rural arts venue.  We operate with a unique combination of paid staff and volunteers.

Stephen Montague


Stephen Montague grew up in Idaho, West Virginia and Florida. He studied piano, conducting and composition at Florida State University (1963-67), received a doctorate in composition from Ohio State University (1972) and won a Fulbright Fellowship to work in Warsaw, Poland (1972-74). He first came to England as a musician with Strider Dance Co. (Richard Alston & co.), but since 1975 has worked as a freelance composer based in London and touring worldwide. His music has been widely performed, featuring in numerous international festivals, most recently at the BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall, London), Sounds New (Canterbury), Wiener Musik Tage (Vienna), and Festival of Contemporary Music (Mexico City). Composer Portrait concerts devoted to his music have been given in London, Cambridge, New York, Houston, Mexico City, Vienna and Budapest. Major commissions include the BBC Proms, Portsmouth Cathedral (UK), Calgary Philharmonic (Canada), Hilliard Ensemble, International Computer Music Association, and a 35-minute work for narrator and orchestra for the London Symphony Orchestra (Benjamin Luxon, narrator) for the Barbican Centre, London, (with a further 14 performances by other leading British orchestras around the UK).

In addition to writing for traditional orchestral forces Montague has also written numerous more ‘experimental’ works such as his Horn Concerto for klaxon horn soloist and an orchestra of automobiles, and a concerto for piano, 8 motorcycles, brass and percussion. Although a long term UK resident, his compositional influences are often transatlantic. He comments: “I have lived in Britain since 1974 but my musical heroes remain American: I admire Charles Ives’s unapologetic juxtaposition of vernacular music and the avant-garde, Henry Cowell’s irreverent use of fist and arm clusters, the propulsive energy of minimalism and John Cage’s radical dictum that all sound is music”.

Stephen Montague was a founder (1980) of Sonic Arts Network, Concert Director (1983-87) and Chair; Chair and Artistic Director of the SPNM (Society for the Promotion of New Music) 1993-98; Associate Composer with The Orchestra of St Johns, London (1995-97); Featured Composer: City of Oxford (1997-98); Artistic Director of Contemporary Music Making for All (2004-05); and the New Music Associate at Kettle’s Yard Gallery and Museum, Cambridge (2010-12), where he curates a monthly concert series. Internationally Montague has been a Guest Professor at the University of Texas – Austin in 1992, 1995, 2000 and the University of Auckland, New Zealand,1997. Since 2007 he has taught part time at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (London).

Montague’s honours and awards include 1st Prize at the 1994 Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France), the Ernst von Dohnányi Citation for Excellence in Composition (1995), The Ohio State University Distinguished Alumnus Award (2000), Honorary Fellow (Hon FTCL, 2002), then Composer in Residence (2003) at Trinity College of Music, (London), and Honorary Fellow of Leeds College of Music (FLeedsCM, 2004). In 2006 his CD Southern Lament – (NMC D118) – featuring his piano works (played by Philip Mead), won the “Best New Piano Music Recording” award from International Piano magazine.

As a “virtuoso pianist” [New York Times] he has recorded for all the major European radio networks, performed at Carnegie Hall, New York City, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Paris’s Centre Pompidou. In 1985 he formed a duo with pianist Philip Mead, Montague/Mead Piano Plus, which toured internationally. He also collaborated with the late sculptor, Maurice Agis, for over 20 years providing multi-channel electroacoustic sound environments for Agis’s giant inflatable sculptures Colourspace and Dreamspace. In his capacity as both a concert organiser and performer Montague has commissioned numerous works by leading composers which include Sir John Tavener, Michael Nyman, Frederic Rzewski and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin).

Compact discs of Montague’s works are available on NMC (UK), ASV (UK), Signum (UK), Continuum (NZ), Centaur (USA), Point Records (USA) and others. In addition to music he is an active cyclist, hiker and tennis player (the former Florida Junior College Tennis Champion).

Zinnie Harris


Plays include “The Wheel’ (National Theatre of Scotland 2011) joint winner of the 2011 Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award and a Fringe First Award; “Midwinter”, “Solstice’ and ‘Fall” (a trilogy of plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company / Traverse Theatre 2005 / 2006 / 2008) Midwinter won the 2005 Art Foundation Fellowship Award for Playwriting, and was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award; “Julie” (National Theatre of Scotland 2006), “Nightingale and Chase” (Royal Court Theatre, London 2001) “Further than the Furthest Thing” (Royal National Theatre/Tron Theatre) winner of the Peggy Ramsay Playwriting Award, John Whiting Award and Fringe First Award and shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn, and Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright; "By Many Wounds" (Hampstead Theatre 1999). Her television writing includes “Born with Two Mothers” and “Richard is my Boyfriend”, (both Channel 4)and several episodes for the BBC One Drama Series “Spooks’. She was writer in Residence at the RSC from 2000 – 2001, is currently an Associate Artist at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and has just finished her first novel.

SCIAF


SCIAF is the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, the official aid and international development charity of the Catholic Church in Scotland. SCIAF works in over 16 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America, to help some of the poorest people in the world, regardless of religion, to work their way out of poverty.
More information: www.sciaf.org.uk