Prelude & Fugue No. 3 for piano (2012)
The prelude is slow and elegiac in character, opening with simple chords that feature in several transformations throughout the piece. The melodic material is always in the left hand. The fugue has a complex structure based on the Fibonacci Series (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 etc.). The notes of the ‘subject’ unfold gradually using this series. When the ‘subject’ is 34 notes long, the process is reversed, gradually losing all the earlier notes. Throughout the fugue the ‘subject’ material also appears into shorter note values, so that in the last 3 bars it simply disappears off the page!


Prelude and Fugue No. 3 (fugue)

His work has been broadcast and widely performed in Britain, Europe and the U.S. Prizes include the Yorkshire Arts Young Composers' Competition (1978), the MidNAG award (1979) and his work 'Elegy' for solo alto flute was one of only two UK works selected for Gaudeamus International Musikweek in the Netherlands. 'Inevitable Inventions' was awarded first prize in the 1996 Match TM Composition Award. In 1994 he was one of the featured composers at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival and he has since been regularly programmed at the festival. 

In 2006 he received the prestigious Creative Wales Award to enable him to write two large scale orchestral works.

His work ranges from a chamber opera, 'Cheap Tricks' (1984), to a large number of solos and duos written for individual performers; notably 'Inevitable Inventions' (1994) for the violinist Madeleine Mitchell, 'Music for the Cyber Cafe' for the clarinettist David Campbell, and the solo trombone piece 'Sinfonia', premiered by Barrie Webb at the 1987 Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music.

In contrast to the reflective, internalised nature of these pieces, recent work over the last ten years, such as the 4 string quartets, and the orchestral works 'Still Life', 'Srebrenica' and  'On the Banks of the Nile' mark a return to a much more dramatic and public language, using large scale forms and forces.

'A composer with Northern Roots and an Internationalist perspective' 

‘A Radical Optimist’ – Aleksandra Line, Mūzikos Saule

‘BEN LUNN puts his beloved birthplace Sunderland on the musical map’ – Linton Stephens, BBC Radio 3

‘His work extends the palette of sounds that can be brought into contemporary classical music, redefining both modern composition and concert-hall inclusion.’ – Alan Morrison, Rhinegold.co.uk 

Powerful, poignant and deeply moving, Lunn’s composition certainly represents the spirit of Disability History Month 2018 and our current struggle for justice. – Gemma Nash, Disability Arts Online

‘Ben’s music is intricate and complex with unusual harmonies, making it challenging and exciting – well worth making the effort as the effect created was magnificent’ – John A. MacInnes


Ben Lunn has forged himself a unique position within the new music landscape. As a composer, Lunn’s music reflects the material world around him, connecting to his North-Eastern heritage or how disability impacts the world around him or his working-class upbringing. Alongside this, he has become renowned for his championship of others, which have seen him creating unique collaborations with musicians from across the globe and developing unique concert experiences and opportunities for others. He has won accolades from the Scottish Music Awards in both 2023 and 2020 for his work with Hebrides Ensemble and Drake Music Scotland, and in 2024 was shortlisted for the RPS Awards for his concerto History Needs… composed for Nicholas McCarthy. In 2022, Ben Lunn became the first North-East composer to be selected for the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Composer Scheme which sees him paired with Music in the Round. 

Lunn’s music has been described as ‘Evocative’, ‘Restrained Otherwordliness’, ‘Chilling’, ‘sophisticated and most importantly obsessive’ or ‘produces…glorious roaring sounds’ and ‘desolate monotone’. He has also been referred to as a ‘Composer of life music’, as well as ‘like Beethoven but drunk’ or a ‘real barn-stomper’.

Ben Lunn studied at the Royal Welsh College of  Music and Drama under the guidance of Peter Reynolds, and also the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre with Marius Baranauskas. He has also received mentorship from composers Param Vir and Stuart MacRae. Since graduating from his Master’s Lunn relocated to Airdrie, where he currently resides; working as conductor, musicologist, teacher and composer. In September 2021, Ben Lunn started his PhD at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where he is exploring the impact of political ideology on composition – discussing Hanns Eisler, Alan Bush, Isang Yun, Luigi Nono, Jian-er Zhu, and reflecting upon his own work.

Lunn’s work has been featured in many leading international festivals including Sound Festival, Crossroads International Festival, Vale of Glamorgan, London New Wind Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Druskomanija, DaDaFest, Arēna Festivals, Leeds Leider+, Zilele Muzicale Aniversare, HASS FEST, Durham Brass Festival, Toronto Contemporary Music Lab, Second Movement’s Rough for Opera, and Occupy the Pianos. He has had the privilege of working with leading international ensembles and soloists including Royal National Scottish Orchestra, Orkestris Sinfonia Concertante, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, N.A.M.E.S, Sofia Soloists, Ensemble 360, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Quadra Quartet, Hebrides Ensemble, Digital Orchestra, SONO Ensemble, Lomond Brass, Lotte-Betts Dean, Eegeru, Grace Maria Wain, NOYO, Orkest De Ereprijs, Ensemble Proton Bern, Red Note Ensemble, Ensemble Synaesthesis, Music Theatre Wales, Lore Lixenberg, Ligeti Quartet, ÖeNM, Ensemble X and Y, Nikolai Matsov, Rolf Hind, Stephanie Lamprea, Francoise-Green Duo, Garth Knox, Lore Lixenberg, Ember Septet, 5K Brass, Zubin Kanga, Martynas Levickis, JVLMA, and Jauna Muzika. 

As musicologist, Lunn’s specialities focus on Baltic Music, Horaţiu Rădulescu, Political Ideology and composition, and Composing and Disability. He has had the honour of lecturing at some of the world’s leading academic institutions including Fordham University, Mozarteum, RWCMD, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Jazepa Vitola Latvijas Muzikas Akademija, Komitas Conservatory, Durham University and Amsterdam Conservatoire. His articles have been published across Germany, UK, US, Russia, Lithuania, and collected by the Arvo Pärt Centre. He has also written for the Music Information Centre of Lithuania and Latvia. He was featured in the recent Policy Press book Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia in which he contributed a chapter. He has also produced documents offering unique insights into how to make the concert experience more accessible Concerts from my point of view, as well as advising concert promoters and organisations to make their work more accessible for disabled artists, What we need to thrive. He has also worked closely with Making Music UK on a new document to assist amateur ensembles. 

In 2021, Ben helped found the Disabled Artist Network, an organisation which is bridging the gap between the professional world and disabled artists. Ben is chair of the Musician's Union's Scottish and North of Ireland Regional Committee and is chair of the North Lanarkshire Trades Council. He also contributes to the Morning Star and Culture Matters.

I compose classical music to pursue the truth and the beauty. It's a way to discover what is meant to be living, and what is meant to be part of nature.

I am a classically trained french composer of screen and concert music and sound designer. My scores cover a range of genres from orchestral or chamber music to electronic and popular styles.

boussuge@opusmodus.com


Composer / Songwriter / Producer
More recent music: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeYYBHhLG32hmDhMY3xakgg

UK creatives should listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK4wBWiozyM

You must hear this: https://vimeo.com/52766051

*****

Ed Brunsden was kind and patient enough to interview me for  his blog Desert... Mountain... Dust...  - you can read it at https://desertmountaindust.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/tuonela-primitive-progressive.html

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. ~ Aldous Huxley

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it. ~ Jean Cocteau

All music is beautiful. ~ Billy Strayhorn
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I've become addicted to drone. Again. I was the kid with his head on the piano, listening to the overtones die away, or pressing his ear to the steel hull of the ferry, enthralled by the sounds it created. I was the kid who formed wordless songs to accompany the sound of train wheels on a long journey, or hummed along with the fan on a hot day.

In the 60s I used to play my 45s on 16, or backwards, or by hand using razor blades as stylii.

I made cut-up tapes on a cheap cassette recorder in the 70s and experimented with reel-to-reel in the 80s. 

Thank you Subotnick, Lygeti, Coltrane, Jimi, Mimaroglu, Eno, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, Throbbing Gristle...

I am not a musician. I am a scavenger of sounds. I use the most basic software to process those sounds, stretching and filtering until something emerges that makes a joyful noise. Or not...

Prelude and Fugue No. 3 (fugue)

michael parkin