Scottish Music Centre - Industry Directory

Artists | Classical | Composers and Arrangers

David Horne is widely regarded as one of the most talented Scottish musicians of his generation. When still a teenager he established his name both as a pianist, making his BBC Proms concerto debut in 1990, and as a composer, with a prize-winning work at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. His composition studies took him to the USA, first at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and then at Harvard University, and he has since returned to the UK and is based in Manchester.

Horne's music can be viewed both as a response, and as a reaction, to modernism. His language has evolved naturally from the classically-orientatated modernist masters, exploring essentially abstract musical ideas. Yet Horne deploys these with an attractive lyricism, an impressionistic ear for instrumentation, and with invigorating energy. Such communicative qualities have drawn leading virtuoso performers on both sides of the Atlantic to premiere his works, including violist Nobuko Imai (Stilled Voices), percussionist Evelyn Glennie (Reaching Out and Ignition) and pianist Boris Berezovsky (Liszt).

David Horne’s ensemble scores such as Out of the Air and the Concerto for Six Players have been performed internationally by the London Sinfonietta, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the California EAR Unit, the Ensemble für neue Musik Zürich, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Recent ensemble works by David Horne include Flex for piano and ensemble, performed in Boston and London with the composer as soloist, and the mirror-pair of Blunt Instruments which received its first performance at the Huddersfield Festival in 2000 and Broken Instruments premiered by the London Sinfonietta in 2001. His chamber works include three string quartets, composed for the Mendelssohn, Yggdrasil and Brentano Quartets.

His large-scale output includes a Piano Concerto premiered in 1993 and recently performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the composer as soloist, two chamber operas Jason Field and Travellers, the music theatre work Beyond the Blue Horizon, and the full-length opera Friend of the People, premiered by Scottish Opera in 1999. In recent years he has been engaged on a series of orchestral and ensemble commissions for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra through his role as Composer in Association with the orchestra, including The Year's Midnight for soloists, chorus and orchestra, the percussion concerto, Ignition, premiered by Evelyn Glennie in 2002, and a Concerto for Orchestra to receive its first performance in May 2004.

Alongside Liverpool activities his new works have included three arrangements of electronica music by Warp artists, Disintegrations, premiered by the London Sinfonietta at the Ether Festival in London in 2003. Most recently his Double Violin Concerto has received performances by the Scottish Ensemble at the 2003 St Magnus and Cheltenham Festivals.

David Horne is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.

Artists | Classical | Piano

David Horne is widely regarded as one of the most talented Scottish musicians of his generation. When still a teenager he established his name both as a pianist, making his BBC Proms concerto debut in 1990, and as a composer, with a prize-winning work at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. His composition studies took him to the USA, first at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and then at Harvard University, and he has since returned to the UK and is based in Manchester.

Horne's music can be viewed both as a response, and as a reaction, to modernism. His language has evolved naturally from the classically-orientatated modernist masters, exploring essentially abstract musical ideas. Yet Horne deploys these with an attractive lyricism, an impressionistic ear for instrumentation, and with invigorating energy. Such communicative qualities have drawn leading virtuoso performers on both sides of the Atlantic to premiere his works, including violist Nobuko Imai (Stilled Voices), percussionist Evelyn Glennie (Reaching Out and Ignition) and pianist Boris Berezovsky (Liszt).

David Horne’s ensemble scores such as Out of the Air and the Concerto for Six Players have been performed internationally by the London Sinfonietta, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the California EAR Unit, the Ensemble für neue Musik Zürich, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Recent ensemble works by David Horne include Flex for piano and ensemble, performed in Boston and London with the composer as soloist, and the mirror-pair of Blunt Instruments which received its first performance at the Huddersfield Festival in 2000 and Broken Instruments premiered by the London Sinfonietta in 2001. His chamber works include three string quartets, composed for the Mendelssohn, Yggdrasil and Brentano Quartets.

His large-scale output includes a Piano Concerto premiered in 1993 and recently performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the composer as soloist, two chamber operas Jason Field and Travellers, the music theatre work Beyond the Blue Horizon, and the full-length opera Friend of the People, premiered by Scottish Opera in 1999. In recent years he has been engaged on a series of orchestral and ensemble commissions for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra through his role as Composer in Association with the orchestra, including The Year's Midnight for soloists, chorus and orchestra, the percussion concerto, Ignition, premiered by Evelyn Glennie in 2002, and a Concerto for Orchestra to receive its first performance in May 2004.

Alongside Liverpool activities his new works have included three arrangements of electronica music by Warp artists, Disintegrations, premiered by the London Sinfonietta at the Ether Festival in London in 2003. Most recently his Double Violin Concerto has received performances by the Scottish Ensemble at the 2003 St Magnus and Cheltenham Festivals.

David Horne is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.