Douglas Boyce writes chamber music that draws on Medieval and Renaissance traditions and modernist aesthetics, building rich rhythmic structures that shift between order, fragmentation, elegance, and ferocity.  His approach is deeply historical and broadly philosophical.  Many of his works have an direct historical touchstone, such as his  Etude on 'Pymalion qui moult subtilz estoit' (A Book of Etudes, Quire 4, No. 1) which features quotations of and elaborations on music from 15th century Cyprus, or La Deploration for clarinet, violin, and cello, which couples Josquin's lament on the death of Ockeghem with works of his own teacher Robert Suderburg, synthesizing jazz and Renaissance approaches. Other works draw on sources from antiquity, such as the string quartet Alcyone, a partially spoken setting of a tale of Ovid's Metamorphoses, or Tethys, a violin concerto which links the sea-goddess to geological time and tectonic change.
Literature and philosophy are also significant points of articulation: The Winter Journey, a current project commissioned from the ensemble Yarn|wire, is based on a short story by George Perec; the story itself  takes the form of a 19th century fairytale of memory and loss, and so the new composition will involve transformation of the French and German art-song tradition of the 19th and early 20th century. A song cycle focused on settings of American poets (Jorie Graham, BJ Ward, Wallace Stevens) entwines with the poems fragments from philosophers (James, Aristotle, Husserl, Bergson). The piano trio 'Fortuitous Variations' draws upon the language of William James and C.S. Peirce in inspiration, organization, character markings, and movement titles. This approach and the works themselves connect to many aspects of the scholarship in the humanities, including history, anthropology, literary studies, and philosophy. 
His works have been praised many times in the press.  Regarding his Quintet “l’homme armé”, Allan Kozinn wrote “he couches [the medieval melody] in such thoroughly modern scoring that the ear is lured to other things, including the juxtaposition of eerie string writing with playful material for the clarinet and piano, or the lively interplay among all five instruments.” (The New York Times March 12, 2005.) Regarding A Book of Songs (2006), the Stephen Brookes wrote “[they] can only be described as drop-dead beautiful. Easily the most captivating works on the program, these songs of love and death are extraordinarily well written and insightful.” (The Washington Post May 23, 2006)  Regarding La Déploration, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim wrote that "...the violinist, cellist... and clarinetist... spread out throughout the crypt. Against vaporous harmonics and ghostly fragments of Renaissance music played by the strings, [a] warm, clear clarinet announced itself as very much alive as it sashayed in and out of blues territory and laughed in the face of their mournful keening." (The New York Times May 17, 2015.)
He has been awarded the League of Composers ISCM Composers Award (2005), the Salvatore Martirano Prize (2006), and the Robert Avalon Prize (2010), and a Fromm Commission (2012). He is a MacDowell Fellow in Winter 2017, and an Avaloch Music Farm Fellow in Fall 2017. His music has been performed by  counter)induction, Aeolus Quartet, Inscape Chamber Orchestra, Redlight Music, Dan Lippel, Robert Baker, Trio Cavatina, Edge Ensemble/Contemporary Music Forum (DC), pianists Ieva Jokubaviciute (Shenandoah University), Alice Belem (State University of Minas Gerais), and Ning Yu; cellists Elise Pittenger (Federal University of Minas Gerais) and Schuyler Slack (Richmond Symphony) and Lori Barnett (George Washington University); and clarinetists David Jones (Washington National Opera), Benjamin Fingland (Dorian Winds).
He is a founding member, curator, and composer-in-residence of counter)induction, a composer/performer collective active in the New York region (www.counterinduction.com).

Specializing in state-of-the-art distribution, marketing and promotion, Naxos of America distributes nearly 32,000 SKUs to traditional brick and mortar retail, as well as offering a comprehensive suite of services tailored to consumer direct fulfillment. Naxos of America is also the largest digital distributor of independent classical music, supplying a catalog of over 30,000 albums to hundreds of digital download and mobile outlets worldwide. Naxos of America offers marketing, e-marketing, publicity, e-publicity, physical and digital e-commerce services, licensing opportunities, streaming services, sales and customer service for all new releases and active catalog titles of Naxos Records and more than 150 distributed labels.

I'm a London-based composer working across both acoustic and electronic music, often combining live instrumentalists and singers with richly textured electronics to create hypnotic and all-enveloping soundworlds.

My music has been commissioned by Sky Arts, the Union Chapel, V&A, Royal Opera House and East London Dance, and supported by Bristol Old Vic, Ovalhouse, Spitalfields Music and Snape Maltings. I'm currently Composer-in-Residence at Handel & Hendrix in London and also an Associate of the LSO Soundhub scheme. My recent work has included pieces for Eliza McCarthy, James McVinnie, Daniel Pioro & Liam Byrne through my concert series SOLO and larger scale works for the London Contemporary Orchestra and Crash Ensemble.

In theatre, I work with a variety of companies to create sound design and original music. My work on Remnants by Erratica was nominated for the Best Sound Design award at the 2017 Off West End Theatre Awards and Sister - a collaboration with director Rebecca Hanbury as Hanbury & Groves - premièred to critical acclaim at Ovalhouse last Autumn.

Rebecca and I collaborate on a wide range of projects and are currently Open Space artists at Snape Maltings where we’re working on our next music theatre work alongside a nationwide choral songbook commissioned by Sky Arts.

My music has been presented at the Royal Opera House, V&A, Union Chapel, Rich Mix, Ovalhouse, National Theatre Studio, Stratford Circus, VAULT Festival, Soho Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, Somerset House, King's Place, The Cockpit and Nonclassical, broadcast on NTS Radio, Resonance FM and BBC Radio 6 Music, and released on influential Icelandic label Bedroom Community.

American viola and viola d’amore player Clifton Harrison has performed as a chamber musician, recitalist, and in orchestras throughout Europe, the United States, Central America, and Asia. He is the viola player in the acclaimed Kreutzer Quartet with whom he has recorded extensively. As a member of the quartet Clifton has been artist-in-residence at Goldsmiths, Southampton, and Bath Spa University with close ties to the Royal Northern College of Music and the University of Oxford.

Parallel to his quartet duties, Clifton regularly gives masterclasses, workshops, and lectures worldwide.  An avid freelance viola player, Clifton has worked with many UK ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Rambert Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, and most of London’s period performance ensembles. Clifton also records regularly for film and television. He has toured worldwide with countless classical ensembles as well as performed with popular artists as wide ranging as Björk, Jeff Lynne’s ELO, David Rodigan & the Outlook Orchestra, and Mumford & Sons.  Clifton has been heard in festivals throughout the world, from the muddy fields of Glastonbury to the EFG London Jazz Festival, Ghent Festival, Lincoln Center Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, and London’s BBC Proms.

As a researcher, Clifton focuses on two distinct areas:  Seventeenth and eighteenth century viola d’amore music from the Germanic region, and Black and Minority Ethnic classical and contemporary composers/sound artists.

Clifton is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, America'‘s top boarding school for the arts. This was followed by studies at the Juilliard School with Dorothy Delay (violin) and Karen Tuttle (viola) and at the Royal Academy of Music with Yuko Inoue (modern viola) and Jane Rogers (baroque viola).

Recent releases are on the Hyperion, Universal Music, Sony, NAXOS, Warner Music, Navona Records, NMC Records, Métier, and Signum Classics labels. 

(Kindly use the form on the contact page at www.cliftonharrison.co to request an updated biography for concerts and promotions.)

"The elegance of Ligeti and the gritty intensity of Kurtág, a fascinating combination. I get the sense of pure music in a serious vein, its composer driven only by an internal need to express himself." Fanfare Magazine USA.

Multi award–winning composer Thomas Simaku (b.1958) gained a PhD in Composition from University of York (1996) where he studied with David Blake. Simaku was the Leonard Bernstein Fellow in Composition at Tanglewood Music Centre, USA (1996) studying with Bernard Rands, and a fellow at the Composers’ Workshop, California State University (1998), with Brian Ferneyhough.

Simaku's music has been reaching audiences across Europe, the USA and further afield for more than two decades, and it has been awarded a host of accolades for its expressive qualities and its unique blend of intensity and modernism. His works have been selected by international juries in no less than nine editions of ISCM World Music Days; other international festivals where his music has been performed include Huddersfield, Tanglewood, Miami, Zagreb-Biennale, Weimar, Munich, Rome, Viitassari (Finland), Alea III Boston, Beijing, Innsbruck (Austria), Warsaw Autumn, etc. Performed by renowned soloists, ensembles and orchestras, his music has been broadcast worldwide, including radio stations such as BBC Radio 3, SWR2, MDR, Deutschlandfunk (Cologne), Amsterdam Radio 4, ORF (Austria), Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), RNE (Spain), RTP (Portugal), etc. His CD, released on Naxos 21st Century Classics series in 2008 received much critical acclaim; it reached the best of year list in the USA.

Prestigious awards include the coveted Lionel Robbins Memorial Scholarship in 1993, First Prize of the 2004 Serocki International Competition, a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, and a three-year fellowship from Arts & Humanities Research Council in London. In 2009 Simaku received a British Composer Award from BASCA for his Soliloquy V - Flauto Acerbo, which the judging panel described as ‘visionary and entirely original’. With this work he represented the UK at the 2012 ISCM Festival in Belgium.

In 2013 Simaku won the first prize of the International Competition for Lutosławski’s 100th Birthday with Concerto for Orchestra, chosen from 160 compositions submitted anonymously from 37 countries. Thomas Simaku is a Professor of Composition at the University of York.

Composer based in London and occasionally Leeds. 

Royal Academy of Music Graduate.
Britten Pears Artist 2015/16
London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Scheme 2016/17 and 17/18 (5' commission)
RPS Composition Prize 2018

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