Brian Inglis

Brian Inglis' output ranges from chamber and choral music to orchestral and operatic works, also taking in multimedia and pop. He has specialised in writing for voice, and has a particular interest in (especially unaccompanied) instrumental and vocal solos. Alongside these virtuoso showpieces, he is equally at home writing for amateur choirs. His music combines experimental elements with eclectic historical, geographical and genre influences - from Japanese and Burmese music to synthpop. Enduring threads which weave through his music are polystylism (typified by 1993's Recorder Concerto), an interest in mystical texts and themes, and the interplay of process and intuition. Following a childhood spent partly in Germany and Iran, Brian studied music at the University of Durham and composition at City University, London - an MA was awarded in 1993 (along with the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers' Prize), and a PhD (supported by a major scholarship from the British Academy) in 1999. His principal teachers were John Casken, Roger Redgate, Simon Holt and Rhian Samuel. Outside academia, he has studied at the Dartington International Summer School; Aberystwyth's Musicfest, and the Dundaga Workshop (Latvia). Brian first came to attention as a composer when his Responsory - a setting of words by Hildegard of Bingen - was performed at the 1992 Huddersfield Festival. Another early interest was the poetry of the First World War, exemplified by Three War Songs and Two Songs after Rupert Brooke. These early interests were fused in the oratorio Visions of Sorrow and Joy (1998) - a commission from Bath Choral Society sponsored by Making Music's pilot 'Adopt a Composer' scheme. In 1999 Brian's Jubilee Prayer was commissioned to celebrate the Millennium in Wales, broadcast on BBC2, Radio Wales and Radio Cymru in 2000. His music has also been heard on BBC radios 1 and 3, Resonance FM (London) and Bayern 2 (Germany). A collaboration with artist Derek Shiel on Invocation for Gallery Oldham (2003) and the Guildford International Music Festival (2007) led to a further commission for Shiel's sound sculptures, Symphony No 2 - premiered by Sarah Leonard and Sculpted Sound at the Central School of Speech and Drama's international conference Theatre Noise in 2009. 2008/9 also saw the one-woman opera The Song of Margery Kempe premiered by Loré Lixenberg at the Tête-à-Tête opera festival. Brian's third opera The Break-Up, a six-word operatic miniature written for the Warehouse Ensemble, was performed at the 2011 festival. In February 2009 Brian curated Gabriel Prokofiev's groundbreaking classical club night Nonclassical, and in the summer of the same year he spent time as Composer-in-Residence at the International Centre for Composers in Visby, Gotland (Sweden). The current decade kicked off with a commission for renowned recorder ensemble Consortium5, Burmese Pictures, which has toured venues and festivals (Deal, Truck, Spitalfields) throughout the UK since 2010 and was released on the Nonclassical record label in 2011. Recorder music forms a distinct and growing sub-category within his oeuvre Brian's most recent large-scale commission is Highbury Fields, a cantata for chorus and orchestra written in collaboration with lyricist Charles Hart (The Phantom of the Opera, Bend it like Beckham), premiered at London's Cadogan Hall in June 2013 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Islington Choral Society. His newer Concerto for Piano Solo, in honour of the bicentenary of the birth of French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan, encapsulates a longstanding interest in alternative music history and features a graphic score cadenza. It has enjoyed a string of spectacular live performances since its première by Gabriel Keen in November 2013. Having taught at Trinity Laban and the RCM, Brian is now a Lecturer in Music at Middlesex University, teaching composition and other creative and analytical subjects.