Sinfonia Conciso 8.1.08

Stephen McNeff b. 1951, Belfast, N. Ireland

Stephen McNeff studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music and undertook post-graduate research at the University of Exeter. He has composed for opera, music theatre and drama in the UK, the USA and Canada, was composer-in-residence at the Banff Centre, and worked with Comus Music Theatre and the Canadian Opera Company. His music has won awards in Toronto and the Edinburgh Festival, and he has been widely performed and recorded in the UK and Europe, Singapore, Japan and North America. His collaborations span a broad range of music-making, from the Canadian Brass (and the New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Brass), to the percussion quartet Ensemble Bash and Joanna MacGregor’s Sound Circus series at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. McNeff's music for children is widely played and broadcast, most recently with the BBC Concert orchestra on Radio 3. Music theatre works have been heard at the Covent Garden Festival (The Wasteland at the Donmar Warehouse), the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith (Slump), the Edinburgh Festival (Aesop) and BAC (Passions). Matins for the Virgin of Guadalupe—written for soprano Patricia Rozario—was premiered at Dartington International Summer School and BAC in London in 2002 and featured at the Cheltenham International Festival of Music in 2004.

His music is played from Mexico (Guanajuato Festival) to Japan where the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra recorded Ghosts (which has received dozens of performances since 2002 and been recorded again in the USA). In recent years he has had had highly successful premieres at the Royal Northern College of Music, the Purcell Room, and in 2003 Zoë Martlew gave the first performance of his Cello Sonata. The Winged Lion for Wind Orchestra was first heard at the Royal Northern College of Music in 2004 and was recorded in 2006. His 2004 opera for the Unicorn Theatre (in collaboration with the Philharmonia Orchestra and based on Philip Pullman’s novel Clockwork) toured England before coming to the Royal Opera House Linbury Studio where it played to full houses and highly enthusiastic reviews. His Clarinet Concerto for Linda Merrick premiered in 2005 in Finland and was featured at the International Wind Conference at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. His music has been regularly performed at Dartington International Summer School and works premiered there have included the Piano Quintet (a companion work for Schubert's Trout Quintet) and The Unknown, a song cycle for tenor and piano based on poems by Edward Thomas.

In 2005 McNeff was appointed to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra as their ‘composer-in-the-house’. This appointment— funded by the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Performing Right Society Foundation—resulted in two substantial works for the orchestra (Heiligenstadt and Secret Destinations) as well as music for summer and Christmas concerts. Other works include Echoes & Reflections for brass and percussion and a number of pieces for Kokoro, the BSO’s contemporary ensemble. In 2006 Gentle Giant, an opera for young people commissioned by the Royal Opera House (based on Michael Morpurgo's book), was premièred in London and toured England. McNeff then went on to work with Opera North on What I Heard About Iraq (commissioned by Fuseleeds 2006), traveled to Mexico for the CD launch of a new work for pianist Ana Cervantes and returned to the UK for the premiere of Tarka the Otter, a community opera for the Two Moors Festival.

Recent works for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra include Sinfonia (premiered by Marin Alsop in March 2007) and Strip Jack Naked (April 2007). 2007 also saw works for the Swansea Philharmonic Choir, the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble and Ensemble Cymru. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra invited him to return as composer-in-residence for a further season (2007/8) and he completed Weathers, a choral work based on the poems by Thomas Hardy. He won a British Composer Award for his opera Tarka the Otter and Gentle Giant. In the first part of 2008 there have also been works for Kokoro and the Bournemouth Symphony Children’s Chorus. Forthcoming new works include pieces for the Philharmonia Orchestra, a double percussion concerto and an opera based on Giles Foden’s award winning novel, The Last King of Scotland.

Stephen McNeff is published by Edition Peters. More information on McNeff can be found at: www.stephenmcneff.co.uk.