Judith Weir

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judith Weir CBE (born May 11, 1954 in Cambridge ) is a British composer . She has been Master of the Queen's Music since 2014 .

Life

Judith Weir has Scottish roots. While still at school in London, she took private composition lessons with John Tavener and played as an oboist in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain . She then studied composition with Robin Holloway at King's College (Cambridge) (graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1976). A Kussewizki Fellowship enabled her to continue studying composition with Gunther Schuller in Tanglewood . From 1976 to 1979 she was composer-in-residence for the Southern Arts Association . From 1979 to 1982 a Cramb Fellowship from Glasgow University followed, from 1983 to 1985 a time as a creative arts fellow at Trinity College (Cambridge) . From 1988 to 1991 Judith Weir was composer-in-residence at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and from 1995 to 1998 at the CBSO .

In 1995 Judith Weir was promoted to CBE and received several honorary doctorates: University of Aberdeen (1995), University of Glasgow (2000), Queen's University Belfast (2001), King's College London (2007). From 1995 to 2000 she was artistic director of the Spitalfields Festival in London. In 2007 she received the Queen's Medal for Music and in 2010 the ISM's Distinguished Musician Award . In 1999 she was visiting professor at Oxford University , followed by others at Princeton and Harvard Universities . Since 2006 she has been a visiting professor at Cardiff University . Since 2014, Judith Weir has been the first woman to hold the honorary title Master of the Queen's Music .

Judith Weir has also received numerous awards for her compositions, such as the 1991 first prize at the International Opera Screen Festival in Helsinki for the dance opera Heaven Ablaze in His Breast , the South Bank Show Classical Music Award for We Are Shadows (2000) and the British Composer Award in the vocal music category for The Voice of Desire (2004).

plant

Judith Weir's compositional focus is on vocal and stage works, but she also wrote orchestral and chamber music. She is the composer and librettist of several operas ( King Harald's Saga , The Black Spider , A Night at the Chinese Opera , The Vanishing Bridegroom and Blond Eckbert ). In 2011 the opera Miss Fortune premiered at the Bregenz Festival . Vocal works were written for Jane Manning , Dawn Upshaw , Jessye Norman and Alice Coote , among others .

During his time as composer-in-residence at CBSO, several works were created that were premiered under the direction of Simon Rattle (including Forest for orchestra, Storm for choir and instrumental ensemble and We are Shadows for choir and orchestra). In addition, there were commissioned works for the Boston Symphony Orchestra ( Music Untangled for orchestra, Natural History for solo soprano and orchestra), the Minnesota Orchestra ( The Welcome Arrival of Rain for orchestra) and the London Sinfonietta ( Tiger under the Table for orchestra). Judith Weir contributed the Sanctus to the collective composition Requiem der Versöhnung (1995) commissioned by the Stuttgart Bach Academy .

Judith Weir dispenses with avant-garde techniques in her works and uses an expanded tonality . In doing so, she draws on the influences of folk music from various traditions, such as the Scottish piobaireachd , a form of variation based on a limited, pentatonic range of intervals, or forms of expression from Chinese theater.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Guardian, June 29, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Weir, Judith
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British composer
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Cambridge