INTERNATIONAL ilSUONO CONTEMPORARY MUSIC WEEK
An Annual Summer Music Academy in Italy
MARC YEATS, Composer
We are pleased to announce the 2016-17 ilSuono's collaboration with the British composer Marc Yeats. In September 2016, ilSuono commissioned Marc the composition of a brand new work to be premiered in the context of the academy's 2nd edition.
Marc's observation 6 [fawley down] (2016) - for piccolo, soprano saxophone, percussion, piano - will receive its world premiere by ensemble Suono Giallo at the academy's opening concert, which will take place on Saturday, July 15, 2017 at 7pm at the Scuola Comunale di Musica "Giacomo Puccini" in Città di Castello, Italy.
Marc Yeats is an internationally renowned composer and visual artist whose compositions have been performed by the most noted of orchestras and ensembles across the globe. These include UK companies such as The London Sinfonietta and The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic and the Halle Orchestra and Chorus. Further afield, Marc’s work has also been performed by the Tokyo City Philharmonic, the Atlanta based, Chamber Cartel, and many others. His compositions have gained great acclaim through many radio broadcasts for the BBC and also been broadcast in many other countries including the US, Germany and New Zealand.
Marc’s relationship with the BBC is both strong and enduring, starting with a BBC Scotland performance by the Edinburgh String Quartet more than 20 years ago. His first orchestral work – I See Blue – conducted by Martyn Brabbins, received much acclaim when first performed around the same time.
This led to specific BBC commissions, including a piano concerto to open Piano 2000 in Manchester, with Kathryn Stott as soloist, and a solo harpsichord piece ‘Rhema’, performed by Mahan Esfahani and broadcast in 2010 by BBC Radio 3 from the Clothworkers’ Centenary Concert Hall in Leeds.
Selection as one of just 10 to attend the legendary Hoy Summer School in 1994 brought Marc into contact with the late Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. At the completion of the course, Max was keen to support and promote Marc’s work, and conducted his first commission with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the St. Magnus Festival in 1997. He and Marc continued to share ideas, and Max took a great interest in Marc’s visual art and compositional work with mobile technologies and a range of asynchronous structural approaches to composition.
Marc is excited to have recently been appointed composer-in-residence to Yeovil District and Dorchester County Hospitals, a position he has also held with other UK and US organisations. Work such as My Blood Is As Red As Yours’ (an orchestral and choral piece commissioned by the Halle to celebrate World Aids Day in 2008 and performed at the Bridgewater Hall) and recent work, such as ‘shapeshifter’ and ‘the observation quartets’ continues to enhance his reputation as a leading contemporary composer.
Marc is now managed by Noel Music Management, and his many works continue to be performed and broadcast to enthusiastic worldwide audiences.
Marc is thrilled to announce that he is now a PhD composition candidate at University of Leeds School of Music with a WRoCAH scholarship, starting in October 2017 for three years.
Research summary: The Sum Of The Parts: Building a game-changing methodology for composing and performing conductor-less, scoreless, asynchronous music for orchestra.
Total asynchronous music for orchestra is conductor-less and scoreless with musicians performing simultaneously independent material at different speeds. Without the conductor, the composer forms a uniquely direct relationship with the musicians, enabling the composition of music that is tailored for each individual orchestral voice with new possibilities in writing dense, multi-tempi, multi-layered music that redefines current orchestral practice and rebalances expressive rigour, structural coherence and flux in complex orchestral music. My research will test and build new methodologies and repertoire in this undeveloped area of composition.