“Michael Bonaventure…whose universe of electronic sounds follow a creative logic uniquely his own.”

AVANT MUSIC NEWS

Michael Bonaventure (b. 1962, Edinburgh) is a composer, organist and general protagonist in new and experimental music projects based in Edinburgh & Amsterdam.

Significant among the elements shaping his music are minimalism (of a kind: not absolute by any means), improvisation and electronic music techniques, though the works resulting from these influences are mostly fixed and tightly-structured rather than open or indeterminate. Many of his pieces explore the vast domain of sound-colour possibilities generated by combining pipe organ with electronic and digital sounds.

Occasionally associated with the so-called “dark ambient” brand of electronica, an album of his music in this genre ”In Tenebris Ratione Organi”, was released in 2019 by Eighth Tower Records, and he has contributed tracks to many other albums released by this label subsequently. His music has been played and broadcast in many countries around the world.

Some recent works are -

“Silverfields Music” (2025) for flute & piano

“Mythical Beasts Tetralogy” (2025), commissioned by organist David Pipe and premièred by him in Paisley Abbey

“Our Yester Days” (2024) & “The Land Of Silence” (2021), both for amplified soprano, live electronics & organ, setting poems by Ernest Dowson and premièred in Montréal, Canada by Kimberley Lynch & Adrian Foster

“Dissenters” (2023), written for Huw Morgan’s ‘Mainly Slow Organ Music’ project in Bristol

“Celestial Objects II” (2023), for organ & fixed media electronics, premièred by Lauren Redhead & Alistair Zaldua at the Registri Festival, San Servolo, Venice in 2023

“Pathways” (2023) for flutes, electronics & organ, commissioned by Richard Craig with Creative Scotland funding, and performed at the 2023 Sound Festival in Aberdeen

“Giant Silver“ (2019/21), fixed media & organ, premièred by Lauren Redhead & Alistair Zaldua at the 2021 BBC Tectonics Festival in Glasgow

“Giant Glass Green” (2020), a digital work commissioned by Earth World Collaborative with funds from the Canada Council for the Arts

“Spellshaper” (2019) for trombone, live electronics & fixed media, premièred by James Fulkerson in Oosthuizen, Netherlands.

“Black Odyssey” (2013) for piano, premièred by the composer at the Oranjekerk, Amsterdam in 2016

Much of his music is published by Firehead Organ Works.

As an organist, he was trained by the legendary Herrick Bunney at St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh in the 1970s. After some years of freelancing and working as an organist in Edinburgh he moved to London, where, for many years, he was organist of All Saints Church, Blackheath and a regular deputy at St. Mary Abbots Church in Kensington. Together with his composer-organist colleagues Huw Morgan, Lauren Redhead and Alistair Zaldua he formed Automatronic, a collective promoting music for organ and electronics that has given many concerts around the UK and overseas and released two CDs, in 2015 and 2021. In the Netherlands, together with composer Luiz Henrique Yudo he is part of MUIZ, which since 2013 has presented an annual ‘Sonority Cabinet’ event featuring the historic 15th Century organ of the Grote Kerk, Oosthuizen in combination with electronic sounds and other media. These programmes typically blend early music with new contemporary works, along with other non-classical music and theatrical elements.

As a performer, he has collaborated with countless composers internationally on the creation of new music for the organ (with and without electronics or other forces) and has to date premièred over 200 new works as well as releasing several CDs of contemporary organ music, including four volumes of Contemporary British Organ Music on the sfz label. These releases feature music by Laurence Crane, Gabriel Jackson, Avril Anderson, David Sutton-Anderson, Paul Patterson and many others. Additionally, he recorded the later organ cycles of Olivier Messiaen on the Delphian label; this includes a widely-acclaimed rendition of the massive “Livre du Saint Sacrement”, released in 2008. He has given solo recitals throughout the UK and abroad, on BBC Radio 3 and Radio Scotland, and since 2012 has been featured regularly as a soloist and ensemble player at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam. More recently, he has formed a duo, ’PNEUMA’, with the Scottish-based flautist, composer & improviser Richard Craig in which a new dimension of artistic practice is being explored through the synergy of flute, organ and amplified sounds in new compositions, improvisation and the adaptation of existing repertoire.

He is currently working with the English-based musician John Duggan on an electronic album entitled “Widows & Orphans”, which is due for digital release in June 2025.