Peter Seabourne ~ full biography
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To begin at the beginning...
Peter Seabourne was born in 1960. At the age of ten he moved to a large farmhouse to live with his grandmother - the isolation and her support fostered a love of music and a passion for composing.
In 1980 he won a place at Clare College, Cambridge, studying composition with Robin Holloway, an inspirational figure. Though initially there was little common ground, some of his teacher's idiosyncratic single-mindedness was already reflected in the student pieces produced. Perhaps the stylistic gap has since narrowed (considerably)! Jabberwocky (1984) was the first success, given by Endymion at the Camden Festival in a Harrison Birtwistle 50th Birthday Concert.
Completing his degree in Music, he moved to York University and took a DPhil in Composition with David Blake. A great number of works were produced, but were varied in style and approach. Imber Song was a joint winner of the RVW Composition Prize (1985) and given two performances in London and at the York Festival. Nocturnes was awarded 2nd place in the Britten Prize in 1986. Performances followed on London's South Bank, with many more across the country in festivals. Five pieces were selected by the Society for the Promotion of New Music, and the last of these, Fragilitá, was given by Lontano under Odaline de la Martinez at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London in 1993.
Silence
Even by this time, however, he had already abandoned writing disowning all his work to this point: this partly due to growing dissatisfaction with his own music, but also from an intensifying feeling of alienation from the prevailing wider contemporary music scene.
Re-awakening
In 2001 a "musical gauntlet" ("write something again, and I will play it") was thrown down by pianist friend Michael Bell. This, combined with the inspirational playing of a talented young pupil, "drew up the veil" revealing music to be beautiful once more and to remind the composer of what had been neglected for too long. There followed an intense outpouring of work. Almost in a single package a "voice'"arrived (at last), with a cohesive sound world and an individual musical landscape; predominantly lyrical, often overtly emotional. Alongside came a wonderful sense of freedom from the constraints of external approval.
Prizes and commissions
Recognition followed. In 2004 his Piano Concerto no.1 was awarded shared 3rd prize in the 1st International Uuno Klami Composition Competition, and an orchestra prize in Finland, performed twice and broadcast by Teppo Koivisto and the Kymi Sinfonietta. His Soaring also took 3rd prize in the 3rd International Ivan Spassov Composition Competition in Bulgaria in 2004 and subsequently 1st prize in the IMRO International Composers' Competition in 2006 in Ireland. In 2005 his Sappho Songs were 'Highly Commended', also in the IMRO Competition. The septet My River, was chosen in anonymous submission from over 200 scores submitted by the North/South Consonance Ensemble, and was played in New York in June 2006 under Max Lifchitz.
In August 2007 David Chew the Director of the Rio 'Cello Festival in Brazil commissioned On the blue shore of silence for 'cello and piano, for performance by Lars Hoefs and Miriam Braga.
In 2007 the composer was appointed a composer-in-residence for the EMFEB orchestral/chamber music project in London by anonymous audition, and he has subsequently had pieces played by them.
More recently, there have been further commissions; the first in 2010 by the Vestfold Festival in Norway for a (collaborative) solo violin work for Henning Kraggerud. This was based around an exhibition of Munch's paintings. It was played five times and broadcast on Norwegian NRK Klassisk Radio in June 2010. Daniel Raiskin and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie have asked for a new orchestral work, Tu Sospiri? to be given in Koblenz in April 2012. The Coull Quartet will play a commissioned quartet accept these few roses in the UK in 2011, and the Spalding Flower Festival will open with a commissioned fanfare Mille Fiori, also in 2011.
Performances and recent work
A music beginning was given its première at the Stamford International Chamber Music Festival in August 2005. Members of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra played his septet The Sadness of the King in Finland, October 2007. The Palomar Ensemble repeated this work as a 'webcast' in December 2007, playing it live again in Chicago, December 2008.
2007 saw the production of a series of duos: Autumnal Dances for clarinet and piano, Pietá for viola and piano for Georg Hamann of the Aron Quartet, and On the blue shore of silence (above), which was subsequently played in Budapest in May 2008 by Orsolya Vági and Sayaka Kubota.
In 2008 he completed a large piano cycle, Studies of Invention, inspired by a visit to the Leonardo museum in Vinci. Forming volume 2 of his Steps piano anthology, this has been widely praised, and selections have been played by Giuseppe Fausto Mudugno in Modigliana and Konstantin Lifschitz in Reutlingen and Yerevan.
Danish pianist Mario Ramón Garcia commented, "I have listened to the whole of "Steps 2: Studies of Invention" with great pleasure. Your musical language is very much your own, clear and strong, never sentimental, yet with great inventiveness for rhythms and harmony, and always very pianistic. And there is a deep thoughtfulness about it, that makes one sit and dwell further when the piece is finished...."
2009 saw performances at the Campus degli Incamminati Festival in Modigliana, Italy by Giuseppe Fausto Mudugno, Alberto Bologni and Corrado Giuffredi. Alissa Tavdidishvili and Litsa Tunnah also played the violin and piano duo (above) in London.
The Piano Trio Last Dance was given by the Larkin Trio at the Guildhall School of Music in London in July 2010 and by Contemporary Consort at the King's Lynn Festival in 2011. Other recent works include the dectets Adrift, and Phantasy Caprices (the latter written for a Mendelssohn anniversary concert by EMFEB and played twice as part of the 'Large Music for Small Spaces' Festival' in The Rosemary Branch Theatre in London - April 2009), the violin/piano duo A Portrait and Four Nocturnes, and the double bass concertino Storyteller. The last of these was a commission by Paul Klee Ensemble, Kaspar Zehnder and Fabio di Casolá for a concert at the Paul Klee Centre in Bern in January 2011. They also included Child's Play...
Further 2011 performances have been given by:
Elizabeth Cooney and Elisaveta Blumina (A Portrait and Four Nocturnes) at the Con Brio series in Sligo, Ireland in February 2011;
Contemporary Consort at the King's Lynn Festival,
Minjeong Shin (some of Steps Book 1) in Philadelphia;
Ostap and Olga Shutko at the Contrasts Festival in Lviv and
Konstantin Lifschitz at the 5th Yerevan International Festival in Armenia
l'Ensemble Quartz in Brussels
Coull Quartet at Warwick and Stamford Arts Centres.
In progress....
Many projects are vying for space.... A commission from Norfolk Concerts for a string quintet is in progress. This will be given its première in Mainz in April 2012, and in Norwich the following October.
A collaboration is also under way with my aunt, the painter Ann Seabourne: Arabesques will form a third volume of his Steps piano anthology, inspired by aspects of the Alhambra in Granada.
A Double Concerto for "horn and conductor" (one person!) is scheduled for performance in Olomouc, Czech Republic in February 2012 by Ondřej Vrabec and the Moravian Philharmonic. Sketches are also under way for a symphony.
A CD is in preparation in the Ukraine with Ostap and Olga Shutko.