Geoff Palmer
Geoff Palmer has been immersed in music since, as a very small boy, he would remove the panel below the keyboard of his father’s upright piano and play with the magical resonances of the strings, becoming absorbed in the atmospheres that these sounds created; he would also graft his own voice into this welter of sound. The creation of soundworlds, exploration of resonance and purity of melodic line still dominate his musical endeavours more than five decades on, both as a composer and a cellist.
Palmer studied composition at Huddersfield in the 1970s, then came doctoral research at Bristol, together with less formal contact with Michael Tippett and Jonathan Harvey. He won the 1997 Classic CD Composing Competition and the 1998 Music Haven Composing Competition and was awarded Second Prize in the 1999 English Poetry and Song Society Competition. BBC broadcasts have included four premières from the Cheltenham Festival and BBC Young Musician of the Year. Recent overseas premières have included the Bassoon Concerto (Rovaniemi 2008) the Fourth String Quartet (Picton, Ontario, 2009) and a Flute Concerto (Toronto 2011) dedicated to Jonathan Harvey; commenting on this last work, Harvey describes it as being “full of imagination and delightful structures … I enjoyed it and am deeply touched and honoured by the dedication”.
As a cellist he has made several appearances locally over the past four years, playing principally solo cello music – suites by J S Bach and Britten, and contemporary works by Tavener, David Wilde and others. These performances mark a return to performing after a silence of several years, following an elbow injury in the early 1990s. Now he is developing the range of his interests – ranging from contemporary improvisation to folk music, which he has recorded with Paul Cowlan on the Swiss Brambus label.
Palmer has now settled in the north-east of Scotland, and is a part-time lecturer at the University of Aberdeen.
