Kristian Ireland - Biography

www.kristianireland.com

Composer, Musician, Researcher (b. 1975 in Melbourne, Australia).

Kristian Ireland is a composer whose music has received performances across Europe, the U.S., the UK, Japan, and Australia, by leading exponents of contemporary music. Kristian Ireland holds a Doctorate and M.A. in Music Composition from Stanford University, where he studied primarily with Brian Ferneyhough. He attended Harvard University as a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Music through the 2009-2010 academic year, studying with Chaya Czernowin. He completed a Bachelor of Music in composition at the Victorian College of the Arts studying primarily with Chris Dench and David L. Young, and at Monash University (Melbourne). Kristian Ireland was an Artist in Residence at SWR Experimentalstudio (Südwestrundfunk | Southwest Broadcasting) (Freiburg, Germany, 2014-2015), Fondazione Sassi | Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Matera, Italy, 2014), Villa Sträuli (Switzerland, 2012), Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf (Germany, 2012), La Napoule Art Foundation (Côte d'Azur, France, 2011), The Banff Centre (Canada, 2009), Denkmalschmiede Höfgen (Germany, 2008), a Japan Foundation Artist Fellow (Japan, 2003), a stipendiary of the DAAD (Berlin, 2013-2014), the Brandenburg Ministry of Science, Research, and Culture in Germany (2012), and the Goethe-Institut in Berlin (2012). He was a finalist in Der Staubachpreis Competition at the 2008 Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik. The event is documented in UK-based filmmaker Andrew Chesher’s Knots and Fields, and was broadcast on hr2-kultur (German radio). Kristian Ireland's music featured at the Venice Biennale (Italy), Wien Modern (Austria), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Giga-Hertz-Preis-Festival at the ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (Centre for Arts and Media) (Karlsruhe, Germany), Alba New Music Festival (Edinburgh), Agimus Venezia Autunno (Italy), Asian Composers League Festival (Japan), Wiepersdorf Sommerfest (Germany), All Frontiers Festival (Italy), Melbourne International Arts Festival (Australia), Internationales Musikfestival Höfgen-Kaditzsch, Rochlitz (Germany), Centre Acanthes (France), Sommerakademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart), the Philharmonie Luxembourg, Chromas Association of New Music (Tuscany), Casa della Musica (Trieste), CCRMA (California), Hamiltonian Gallery (Washington), CalArts (Los Angeles), ArtSpace Herndon (Virginia), and at conservatories in Denmark, Norway, Portugal, and Spain. Kristian Ireland's music has been performed by ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Ensemble SurPlus, Ensemble Experimental | SWR Experimentalstudio, Ensemble L'arsenale, Quartetto Maurice, Ensemble für Neue Musik Zürich, The Formalist Quartet, Speak Percussion, by noted interpreters including Séverine Ballon, Richard Craig, Frank Cox, Chris Gross, Yasutaka Hemmi, Graeme Jennings, Deborah Kayser, Yu Kobayashi, Josh Levine, Marshall McGuire, Geoffrey Morris, Peter Neville, Stephen Robinson, Rikuya Terashima, Pascal Viglino, Yasunori Yamaguchi, by conductors James Avery, Steven Loy, Warwick Stengards, and Shinji Moriguchi, among others. Kristian Ireland's music is published by Edition Gravis (Berlin, Germany) and has received radio broadcast in Europe, the  U.S. and Australia. Ireland has given lecture and paper presentations at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (Leipzig), Harvard University, UC Berkeley, USC (Los Angeles), the matrix12 conference of the SWR Experimentalstudio at the Goethe-Institut in Warsaw, Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit | Stiftung Topographie des Terrors (Berlin-Schöneweide), the 2004 Symposium of the International Musicological Society, The University of Melbourne, and others. He studied piano with Stephen McIntyre and Michael Kieran Harvey, and worked often as a piano accompanist and as a chamber and orchestral keyboardist from 1991 to 2001.

Composer, Academic at Leeds Beckett University. MA Sonic Arts Lead Tutor. Music available from Empreintes Digitales. https://electrocd.com/en/album/5984/Nikos_Stavropoulos/Micro-lieux

Born in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Michael Spencer studied composition with Graham Hair at the University of Glasgow where he received an MA in Music and Scottish Literature. Between 1997 and 2002, he completed a MusM and PhD in Composition with Geoff Poole at Manchester University. Between 1998 and 2004, he worked privately with James Dillon.

His music has been performed at the Henze Festival (RNCM), St Cyprian’s Church (London), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (twice short-listed for the Young Composers’ Competition in 2000 and 2003), Instal 2002 (Glasgow), Maxis 2003 Festival (Leeds), in workshops by the Apollo Sax Quartet, Psappha, in France, Canada, at the Darmstädter Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Germany, 2004 and 2012, and extensively at Glasgow, Manchester and Leeds Universities. Toxic Knuckle Bones was performed by the BBC Philharmonic under James MacMillan on Radio 3’s Hear and Now programme in 2001. He has worked with notable performers such as Ensemble SurPlus, Ian Pace, Richard Casey, Modelo62, Trio Atem, Apartment House, Christophe de Bezenac, Adam Starkie and Geoff Poole. In 2003, he received a stipend to attend the International Summer Course for Composers at Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, where he worked with Chaya Czernowin, Steve Takasugi and Richard Barrett. His work la mer allée avec le soleil was performed there by Ensemble SurPlus and subsequently by them in Stuttgart and Freiburg.

In 1999, he co-founded Polaroid, an evening of new and experimental music at the Arches (Glasgow) with Tiernan Kelly and Freya Mitchell. Programmes included the Scottish premières of Cage’s 'Muyoce II', Nono’s 'Canti Per Tredici', and performances of Stockhausen and young British composers. Polaroid was the blueprint for the Arches’ Instal Festival, for which Spencer was a consultant in 2001 and 2002, organising the performance of Ligeti’s 'Poème Symphonique', works by Berio and Takemitsu and the UK première of Feldman’s 'Instruments III'. He has also conducted the University of Glasgow’s Kelvin Ensemble in a programme of Arkell, Yeats and Schumann. In 1999, he co-ordinated the performances of the music of Urugyan composer Graciela Paraskevaidas at Manchester University (as part of a tour of Universities organised by Stephen Davismoon). His research interests include the music of Brian Ferneyhough, James Dillon, Helmut Lachenmann, improvisation, live electronic-performer interaction, aesthetics and semiotic analysis which he taught at Manchester University for seven years. In 2003, he gave a lecture-recital a the University of Glasgow, a master-class in composition at the Junior Department of Trinity College of Music (London) and he was resident composition tutor for the National Youth Brass Band.

At the University of Leeds he runs and conducts the new music ensemble LSTwo which has performed under his artistic direction Stockhausen’s 'Kreuzspiel', Varèse’s 'Intégrales' and 'Ionisation', Lachenmann’s '…zwei Gefühle…, Musik mit Leonardo', Grisey’s 'Vortex Temporum' and Boulez’s 'Le marteau sans maître', Chaya Czernowin’s 'Afatsim', James MacMillan’s '…as others see us…', Beat Furrer’s 'Gaspra', Stäbler’s 'Luftspiegelungen – Ein Spiel fur Sieben' and a range of premières of postgraduate student work. He has published several articles on the creative process as well as on James Dillon’s music.

Spencer’s recent work includes  'Ungrund (after Boehme) V' for Trio Atem using text fragments by Heraclitus in a collaborative project with Willaim Hutson, premiered in March 2013, another new piece in his Ungrund cycle for Adam Starkie (solo clarinet) with ensemble was premiered in April 2013, and an article on the string quartets of James Dillon to be published by CMR later in 2013. 'Ungrund II (after Böhme)' for solo clarinet/kick-drum (one player)  was premièred in Strasbourg by Starkie before receiving its UK première in Leeds, April 2010. It recently received another performance at MusicA Festival, Strasbourg. 'Ungrund (after Boehme) I' for chamber ensemble was premièred by Ensemble Modelo62 as part of their UK Urbane Tour. 'The Eemis Stane – Homage to K.S. Sorabji' is available on a CD collection of new piano music recorded by Aleks Szram (fonorum label 2005) and his piano piece 'Message from Aiwass X (on his Horoscope)' has just been released on CD (Joyous Lake on primafacie records, performed by his past mentor Geoff Poole, to whom the piece is dedicated). His recent work for solo cello, 'Verdrängung von der Aufhebung' was premiered in Darmstadt by Andrej Gal. Current work in progress includes a large scale project entitled 'Intervolve' which explores the possibilities of the double bass within the framework of the thinking of Michel Foucault. The triptych is for accordion and double bass ('Intervolve' – completed); improvising solo double bass; three improvisers and three non improvisers ('Heterotopia' – work in progress); and a work for bass flute, harp and double bass ('L’Ordre du Discourse'). He is also writing a new work for ELISION ensemble (oboe, percussion and violin), a new piece for solo cello for Seth Woods and a new piece for Ian Pace for solo piano (and possibly other implements!).

Composer and pianist. 
M.M. Composition BGSU '18
B.M. Theory/Composition Concordia College '16

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