Rise from the Dark 8.7.09
DAVID HEATH
Heath began writing music in 1975, basing his music harmonically and rhythmically on the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Heath's early pieces—Out of the Cool, Rumania, Fight the Lion, and Coltrane—were written between 1975 and 1982. They were all modern, jazz-based works, and have been played and recorded world wide. In the 1980s he began to incorporate rock and studio techniques into his compositions, and by the 1990s, after settling in Scotland, his music had become influenced by Celtic and natural sound.
Heath has written for several of the greatest instrumentalists of our time. He wrote two flute concertos for James Galway, Free the Spirit and Heaven and Earth; and a major percussion concerto for Evelyn Glennie, African Sunrise-Manhattan Rave. The percussion concerto was subsequently recorded by Glennie and the London Philharmonic by Black Box on a highly praised disc of the same name. His electric violin concerto for Nigel Kennedy, Alone at the Frontier, premiered in Minneapolis 1993 and contained the first-ever beat box choir. It caused a sensation in the United States. In 2003 Heath’s work Sirocco was premiered at the Barbican London by violinist Ittai Shapira, oboist John Anderson and the English Chamber Orchestra. Sirocco was subsequently a highly regarded disc, released by Black Box.
In 2006 he wrote the score for a documentary about Daniel Pearl, The Journalist and the Jihadi, which premiered that year on HBO. It was based on his violin and orchestra piece commissioned by Daniel Pearl's father, Judea, entitled Elegy for Daniel Pearl. That same year, Heath scored a ballet for choreographer Christopher Bruce and the Ballet Rambert, A Steel Garden. April 2007 saw the premiere of his first opera Everyday Occurrence, a love affair set in the pit of an orchestra, and his major choral work Spirit of the Truth which premiered at St Albans Abbey. In the summer of 2007, Marin Alsop conducted the world premiere of Heath's orchestral piece Colourful World at the Cabrillo Festival in the United States.
In January 2009, Heath conducted his major work Conflict and Resolution with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to open the 2009 Celtic Connection Festival in Glasgow, and in February conducted John Anderson and the English Chamber Orchestra in the world premiere of his oboe concerto Sahara.
Up on the One, his huge and outrageous tribute to Miles Davis, is to be performed in the Barbican in May 2009 and involves childrens choir, full orchestra,,beat-boxing sensation Shlomo, Heath’s jazz trumpeter son Liam, and world renowned guitarist John Etheridge.
Photo: Portia Shao
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