'The Cat' from An Amherst Bestiary (1997)

Born in Wales in 1969 and brought up in Warwickshire, Julian Philips studied music at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and is one of Britain’s most versatile composers. His music has been performed across the world at major festivals and venues including the BBC Proms, Tanglewood Music Festival, Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne and Wigmore Hall, by international artists including Gerald Finley, Dawn Upshaw, Sir Thomas Allen, the Vertavo String Quartet and BBC orchestras.
With a particular affinity for music for voice, Philips has been critically acclaimed for song settings of Emily Dickinson, e e cummings, Dylan Thomas and Langston Hughes among others, most recently a new cycle for baritone, cello and harp, Turning Fifty (2019) based on the poetry of Judith Wright. Love Songs for Mary Joyce (2016), commissioned by Wigmore Hall for tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Anna Tilbrook, sets a series of late love poems by John Clare. His choral music is similarly celebrated and is included in the Choirbook for the Queen (Church Music) as well as being commissioned for the BBC Proms (Sorrowfull Songes).
As Glyndebourne Opera’s first ever Composer-in-Residence, Philips completed two chamber operas in 2006-9: Followers, a site-specific promenade opera with a libretto by Simon Christmas, and The Yellow Sofa with a libretto by Edward Kemp, subsequently featured in Glyndebourne’s tour and shortlisted for a British Composer Award. The year-long development of Knight Crew was filmed by BBC Television and the resulting series, Gareth goes to Glyndebourne, aired in June 2010. Philips’ opera How the Whale Became, a collaboration with Edward Kemp, was based on Ted Hughes’s The Dreamfighter and other creation tales, and was written for the Royal Opera House’s Christmas 2013/14 season. His most recent full-length opera, The Tale of Januarie, was staged by the Guildhall School in Spring 2017, boasting perhaps the first libretto in Middle English by Stephen Plaice, and based on Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Tale. A new primary school children’s opera, Henny Penny (2021), offers its participants an immersive experience both in music and modern language learning, with versions in French (Cocotte Chocotte), German (Hennig Pfennig) and Spanish (Pollita Chiquita).
Ballet and opera are natural progressions for Philips, who already has an impressive track-record in composing for the theatre and has written two full-length ballets for choreographer Michael Corder and English National Ballet; a ballet based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses was followed by The Snow Queen in 2007. Symphonic works also form Philips’ oeuvre with All that remains commissioned to commemorate the centenary of the beginning of World War I receiving its world premiere by the National Orchestra of Belgium. Ballades Concertantes, for solo viola and double bass with chamber orchestra, premiered with Virginia Slater, Stacey Watton, and the Orchestra of the Swan in 2017, conducted by David Curtis.
A vital force in education, Philips is the Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where he was made Honorary Fellow in 2007, and conferred a Professorship in 2014. He was responsible for the creation of both a new Masters Programme in Opera-Making & Writing and a Doctoral Composer-in-Residence scheme in association with the Royal Opera House.
Recent projects include a new oboe quintet, Through Silence (2020) for Wigmore Hall, and a set of folk song creative transcriptions, Melodys of Earth and Sky (2021), for violin and clarinet that draw on the two books of fiddle tunes collected by poet John Clare. The work was released on NMC Recordings in March 2022, reaching no 10 in the classical charts. In October 2022, The Country of Larks for tenor, horn and piano – a setting of Robert Louis Stevenson – receives its third performance at the Oxford Lieder Festival.
In August 2022, Julian Philips was featured composer at the Presteigne Festival, with six works featured including Barcarola for solo piano, Divertissement for chamber orchestra (based on his ballet score for Les Liaisons Dangereuses) and Looking West – a large-scale dramatic cantata for voices, actors and ensemble, (libretto by Rebecca Hurst), commissioned to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Other recent works include A Series of Strange Encounters for marimba and wind quintet, premiered by Evelyn Glennie at the Lake District Summer Music Festival in July 2023. Current projects include a series of John Clare settings for the vocal ensemble Exaudi and ongoing collaboration with the New London Chamber Ensemble, celebrating their 25th Anniversary, with a series of chamber works.

Natalia Rojcovscaia-Tumaha is composer, pianist, conductor, pedagogue, linguist, writer, actress, painter and sound director; laureate of national and international competitions and festivals, member/chairman of the jury, participant and organizer of competitions and festivals.
Natalia Rojcovscaia-Tumaha is a member of the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Moldova, a member of the Union of Composers of the Russian Federation, a Board member of the Center for Russian Science and Culture, a Board member of the International Alliance for Women in Music (USA), a member of the American Composers Forum, a Collaborative Composer and Artist of the MusiCaribe Project International (USA), the President of the Guild of Young Art Creators. 
Natalia graduated with a Master's Degrees from the Academy of Music, Theatre and Fine Arts and from the Institute of International Relations of Moldova.
She is a laureate of international competitions such as the International Competition of Scores, organized by the Orchestra Unleashed (USA, California, Hollywood), the Polish Competition of Composers “A. Mickiewicz”, conducted by the Polish Embassy and the Polish Society in Moldova, the Composer Competitions, organized by the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Moldova in categories “Chamber Music” and “Symphonic Works” and many others. Natalia takes an active part in international festivals: the International Festival of Contemporary Music “Music Marine Fest” (Ukraine, Odessa) and “The Days of New Music” (Moldova, Chisinau), the Children's Film Festival "World through the Eyes of Children" as chairman of the jury.
Natalia’s creativity covers many genres and forms of both Art Music (ensemble, orchestral, choral) and Electronic Studio Music. She also works in such directions as theater performances, television shows, film music and has received international award for the soundtrack for the Short Film "I Am Me".
There are many newspaper and magazine articles about Natalia's creativity, as well as TV programs. Her music is performed live and aired on radio stations around the world: in the USA, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova and Africa. Natalia's activities are featured on the New Music USA website, on the official Donne: Women in Music - Drama Musica website (UK, London) along with the most famous women composers and she was selected as the Composer of the Week, on the website of the International Alliance for Women in Music and many others. Natalia was also presented by the WFCF Radio Station as the Featured Composer (Florida, USA).
Natalia is a Collaborative Composer and Artist of the MusiCaribe Project International.
Natalia Rojcovscaia-Tumaha's working principle and her artistic position are characterized by high professionalism, polystylism, innovation and cultural enlightenment.

Personal website: https://rojcovscaiatumaha.wixsite.com/official
Official FB page: https://www.facebook.com/N.RojcovscaiaTumaha

'The Cat' from An Amherst Bestiary (1997)

Julian Philips Composer