Full Biography
Howard Skempton was born in Chester in 1947, and has worked as a composer, accordionist, and music publisher. He studied in London with Cornelius Cardew from 1967 and Cardew helped him to discover a musical language of great simplicity. Since then he has continued to write undeflected by compositional trends, producing a corpus of more than 300 works - many pieces being miniatures for solo piano or accordion. Skempton calls these pieces "the central nervous system" of his work.
Over recent years, Skempton has concentrated increasingly on vocal and choral music. Of the major pieces, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven was written for the Belfast Philharmonic Society and first performed in the Waterfront Hall in 2000; The Voice of the Spirits was written in 1999 for the 750th anniversary of University College, Oxford and premièred in St John's, Smith Square in 1999. The Bridge of Fire, a setting of James Elroy Flecker, was first performed by the BBC Singers in May 2001, and Lamentations, for bass and theorbo, was premièred by Paul Hillier and Nigel North in July of that year.
Skempton's catalogue of chamber works is also as diverse as it is long, ranging from pieces for solo cello (Six Figures, 1998), and guitar (Five Preludes, 1999), to the Chamber Concerto for fifteen players, and the Concerto for Hurdy-Gurdy and Percussion which received its German première in 2003. 2003 also saw the Argentinian première of his string quartet, Catch, and the first performance of That Music Always Round Me given by the University of Manchester Chorus and Symphony Orchestra.
In 2004, the Wakeford Ensemble toured a specially commissioned work, Eternity's Sunrise, to nine venues around the UK, the Apollo Saxophone Quartet and Goldberg Ensemble performed Ballade around the north of England, and Ensemble Sentieri Selvaggi gave the Italian première of Gemini Dances at a sell-out concert at La Scala, Milan. Tendrils for string quartet received its world première at the 2004 Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music, performed by the Smith Quartet. This piece went on to win the prize for 'best chamber-scale composition' at the annual Royal Philharmonic Society awards in May 2005, and the chamber prize at the BACS British Composer Awards in December 2005.
Ben Somewhen, a commissioned piece from the BCMG for solo double bass and ensemble was premièred in April 2005. Inspired by the matchstick drawings of Ben Hartley depicting rural life, a "rural tour" of Ben Somewhen followed the first performance. Major performances in 2006 included Lento by the BBC Concert Orchestra in October at the QEH, and the Bozzini Quartet gave performances of Skempton's string quartets in Sweden and Canada.
Works have been commissioned and performed by other leading artists including the BBC, Ensemble Bash, OKEANOS, and New Noise, and a chamber work for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's 'Ensemble 10/10' was premiered in May 2007. In 2007 Skempton completed a large scale orchestral work for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and James Gilchrist, which was premiered at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival on 6th September 2007.
2007 saw many concerts celebrating Skempton's 60th birthday, including performances by the Gemini Ensemble, the Schubert Ensemble of London, Tom Kerstens and his G+ Ensemble and Leamington Music. He was also be a featured composer at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival and the Exon Singers summer festival.
In March 2008, the Coull Quartet celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of their residency at the University of Warwick with the première of Skempton's Exectancy. Later in the year, John Tilbury, the celebrated contemporary classical concert pianist, performed the World Premiere of Notti stellate a Vagli at St. John's, Smith Square. The piece is named after a 14th-century Tuscany hamlet - Borgo di Vagli - the work of Fulvio Di Rosa who commissioned the piano work.
A work for the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Only the Sound Remains, for viola and ensemble, was premiered in February 2010 in a Skempton portrait concert. Other recent commissions include a choral work, Song's Eternity, for the 2010 Aldeburgh Festival, a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis setting for Wells Cathedral, and an instrumental work for Kathryn Tickell to perform at the 2011 Bath Festival. Skempton has been commissioned as part of the New Music 20*12 Cultural Olympiad project. He will be writing a piece for eight church bells for the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers which will be performed to mark the opening of Spitalfields Festival at Christ Church, London, in June 2012.
Many of Skempton's compositions have been recorded, including the hugely successful Lento for orchestra on the NMC label by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the piano works performed by John Tilbury on the Sony Classical label and Shiftwork by Ensemble Bash, also on Sony Classical. 2001 saw the release on Guild of The Flight of Song, an acclaimed choral collection performed by the choir of Queens' College Cambridge under James Weeks. Vocal group Exaudi released a disc of his choral music in September 2007, again on the NMC label. The recording, entitled Ben Somewhen, also featured chamber works performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. A recording of Skempton's choral music by the Exon Singers was released on Delphian Records in August 2008. In 2010 Mode Records released a disc of Skempton's choral and piano works, performed by Exaudi and the pianist Daniel Becker, entitled Bolt from the Blue.
