Stephen McNeff
Stephen McNeff has composed for opera, music theatre and drama in the UK, the USA and Canada, was Composer in Residence at the Banff Centre, and worked with Comus Music Theatre and the Canadian Opera Company. His music has won awards in Toronto and the Edinburgh Festival, and he has been widely performed and recorded in the UK and Europe, Singapore, Japan and North America.
His collaborations span a broad range of music making, from the Canadian Brass (and the New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Brass), to the percussion quartet Ensemble Bash and Joanna MacGregor’s Sound Circus series at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.
His music for children is widely played and broadcast. Music theatre works have been heard at the Covent Garden Festival (The Wasteland at the Donmar Warehouse), the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith (Slump), the Edinburgh Festival (Aesop) and BAC (Passions). His most recent opera, for the Unicorn Theatre in collaboration with the Philharmonia Orchestra, was.based on Philip Pullman’s novel, Clockwork. It toured nationally earlier this year, including a three week sell-out at the Royal Opera House Linbury Studio (ROH2) where it was enthusiastically reviewed.
Matins for the Virgin of Guadalupe, written for soprano Patricia Rozario, was premiered at Dartington International Summer School and London in 2002, and featured at this year’s Cheltenham International Festival of Music. Other recent premieres include, in July 2003, McNeff’s Cello Sonata, with soloist Zoe Martlew. The Winged Lion for Wind Orchestra was heard in its completed form at the Royal Northern College of Music in March 2004.
In 2005 he takes up the position of Composer in the House with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Future plans include a Clarinet Concerto for internationally renowned soloist, Linda Merrick, and a companion work for Schubert's Trout Quintet. Other projects in development involve new work with Royal Opera House Education and a commission from the Philharmonia Orchestra for the 2007/8 season.
Stephen McNeff comments:
“I am delighted to be working with the BSO, an orchestra I have heard and admired for very many years. I have strong connections with the Orchestra’s region and look forward to a renewed opportunity to make music there in a rich and varied way. I believe that music should be able to communicate to a large number of people without compromising its adventurousness, and the Composer in the House project provides a perfect opportunity to work with the BSO musicians and audience in a way that enables us all to move forward together and leave something of lasting value.”
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