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News

2017

New work: The Breaking Wheel

a picture of Mark Simpson and Richard Uttley
The Breaking Wheel, Mark’s new three-movement work for clarinet and piano, commissioned by the Little Missenden Festival, will be premiered by Mark Simpson and Richard Uttley at the festival on Monday 16th October.

The Festival has written an article about the inspiration behind the piece. For further info and to book tickets visit the festival website.

If you can't make it to Little Missenden, Mark and Richard will give a second performance of the piece at the Picture Gallery at Royal Holloway, University of London on Saturday 21st October, details here.

Five Memos to receive US premiere

The Lost Dog New Music Ensemble logo
Five Memos for violin and piano will receive its US premiere in New York on Saturday 14th October, performed by Esther Noh and Jacob Rhodebeck of Lost Dog New Music Ensemble.

The concert kicks off a season-wide exploration of contemporary music from the UK, including music by James Macmillan, Jonathan Harvey and Michael Finnissy.

Lost Dog will also be performing more of Mark’s chamber works in early 2018 - watch this space!

Further information and tickets here www.lostdognewmusic.org

GCSE Music

Rhinegold's Music Classroom Logo
Mark’s Five Memos is featured in a new online teaching tool from Rhinegold Education.

In partnership with NMC, the resource includes works by Judith Weir, Howard Skempton and Tansy Davies.

Addressing the composition component in the GCSE Music syllabus, the pieces are the starting points for practical lessons and student exercises, with each work exploring a key compositional technique in detail.  

You can find out more by visiting the Online Music Classroom website.

GCSE Dance


Mark’s piece Airs No Oceans Keep forms part of a new teaching resource for GCSE Dance. Developed in partnership with Rambert Dance Company, the free teaching resource focuses on music by past Rambert Music Fellows.

The resource pack is designed to be used for the GCSE Dance choreography component, and provides teachers with guidance notes written with Rambert’s Artistic Director Mark Baldwin, for encouraging students to use contemporary music in creating new dance.

Featuring five pieces by the Rambert Music Fellows, plus five selections from NMC’s back catalogue, downloadable audio extracts for all ten pieces and detailed programme notes written by the composers are also included.

PRS Foundation Composers Award

The PRS Foundation logo
Mark has been awarded the PRS Foundation Composers’ Fund enabling him to work on a large-scale project over the next two years.

We can't reveal too much about the project yet, but suffice to say it will be Mark’s largest piece to date and we hope to be able to share details with you very soon. Watch this space!

Airs No Oceans Keep released on NMC

The cover of the Flux album
Mark’s piano trio Airs No Oceans Keep has been released on a new disc Flux from NMC, which features music by Rambert Dance Company's first five music fellows: Gavin Higgins, Mark, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Kate Whitley and Quinta.

Airs was recorded by the brilliant Fidelio Trio and the disc has been attracting some great reviews. BBC Music Magazine described it as a: 'marvellous evocation of water, from light dancing on waves to bristling sea shanties'

For more information and to have a listen, (or even buy the CD!) visit NMC.

National Youth Orchestra of Wales: Young Composers

An image of National Youth Orchestra of Wales
Following four successful years, the National Youth Orchestra of Wales will again run the Young Composers programme as part of this summer’s NYOW residency.

Successful applicants will receive tuition in compositional technique, orchestration and analysis, all delivered by Mark.

In addition, composers will have the opportunity to write new music for groups of musicians drawn from within the ranks of the NYOW itself. The young composers will work with Wales’ foremost young musicians to develop and rehearse their music before presenting it in a series of stand-alone performances across Wales.

For more information and to apply click here.

BBC National Orchestra of Wales: Composition Wales

An image of a composer working on a score
Mark returns to work with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales on the Composition Wales 2017 project. Eight composers have been selected to take part in a series of workshops which began in January and will culminate in a concert in March conducted by B Tommy Andersson. This year the composers were briefed to create a work that could serve as a concert opener or an encore for a BBC National Orchestra of Wales concert. Follow the story on twitter via #CompositionWales

Creative Collective at Tate Exchange

The Exchange Manifesto from the Tate Modern
The Creative Collective, a new Trinity Laban project for young artists led by Mark and choreographer Bethan Peters was in residence for a week in February at the Tate Modern as part of the Tate Exchange programme.

Mark mentored Creative Collective artists as they developed ideas for new works inspired by the environment of Tate Modern which will be performed as part of the annual Lewisham Live Festival, and at the Tate Modern.

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