COLIN MATTHEWS in conversation with ANDREW WARD
September 6, 2023 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
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£5
Folkestone New Music invited Colin Matthews one of today’s most distinguished composers. As well as composing, Colin has been involved with a number of major musical projects, such as his collaboration with Derrick Cooke to make the performing version of Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony. He was Benjamin Britten’s assistant in the 1970s, helping the ailing composer write his last pieces, including Death in Venice and the String Quartet No 3.
‘The Isambard Kingdom Brunel of contemporary music: master of great time machines, steamy with energy derived from pulse and from massive, surging harmony, and openly displaying their structural engineering, all finished with a craftsman’s care.’
Colin will be joined by Ellie Blamires on flute who you may have seen perform when she came down here with the Ensemble Renard – will be playing Colin’s solo flute works, ‘Bell Wether’ and ‘Five Untitled Pieces’.
For over 50 years, Colin Matthews has held a unique position in British music. From being Benjamin Britten’s assistant in the last years of Britten’s life to becoming one of the UK’s leading composers in his own right, Matthews’ career has embraced a dazzling range of activity and achievements. An outstanding teacher, he has led composition classes in the world-leading Aldeburgh and Tanglewood composition courses since 1992 and has also been composition director of the LSO’s Panufnik scheme since 2005. He founded and is the Executive Producer of the internationally respected, award-winning record label NMC, and is Executive Administrator of the Holst Foundation and Joint President of Britten-Pears Arts. His works have been performed globally by the world’s leading orchestras and performers. He also arranges the work of other composers and between 1964 and 1975, he worked with Deryck Cooke on completing Mahler’s Tenth Symphony. He is Prince Consort Professor of Music at the Royal College of Music and has received many prestigious honours, including an OBE (2011), the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Lesley Boosey Award (2005) and the Gramophone Special Achievement Award (2017). His opera, A Visit to Friends, with a libretto by William Boyd, is to be premiered at the 2025 Aldeburgh Festival.
I am delighted that the great Colin Matthews is coming to The Green Room on Wednesday, September the 6th at 7pm. I
