Name Tansy Davies Role Composer | Albums Troubairitz | |
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Nominations Independent Music Award for Best Album - Contemporary Classical Similar People Birmingham Contemporary Music Gr, London Sinfonietta, Philip Cashian, Huw Watkins, Gabriel Prokofiev | ||
Eno between worlds with tansy davies and deborah warner
Tansy Davies (born 29 May 1973, Bristol) is an English composer of contemporary classical music. She won the BBC Young Composers' Competition in 1996 and has written works for ensembles such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
Contents
- Eno between worlds with tansy davies and deborah warner
- Tansy davies album launch
- Early life
- Commissions
- Musical style
- Recordings
- References
Tansy davies album launch
Early life
Tansy Davies started out singing and playing guitar in a rock band. She developed an interest in composition in her teens and studied composition and French horn at the Colchester Institute followed by further study with Simon Bainbridge at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and with Simon Holt. Tansy Davies has been Composer-in-Residence at Royal Holloway, University of London (where she gained a PhD) and currently teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She also worked for three years as a freelance horn player and was a member of the Moon Velvet Collective.
Commissions
Davies was a prize winner in the 1996 BBC Young Composers' Competition. She has received a number of commissions from a number of organisations, for such works as the following:
Other works include Streamlines (CBSO Youth Orchestra/Paul Daniel); Contraband (Britten Sinfonia); kingpin (City of London Sinfonia), Adorned (Haugesund CO – Norway), Hinterland (Cheltenham Festival), Rift (BBC Concert Orchestra) and Elephant and Castle (a large-scale multi-media work for the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival, co-written with Warp Records DJ Mira Calix, and directed by Tim Hopkins). In February 2007, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Thomas Adès gave the premiere of Falling Angel, a 20-minute commission for large ensemble in Birmingham, and at the Présences festival in Paris. Her first commission for The Proms, Wild Card for orchestra, received its world premiere in September 2010.
Musical style
Davies' music is informed by the worlds of the classical avant-garde, funk and experimental rock. As well, her scores contain unusual directions, such as 'urban, muscular', 'seedy, low slung', 'stealthy' and 'solid, grinding'. Other influences on her compositions have included the architecture of Zaha Hadid, in her trumpet concerto Spiral House. She has also collaborated with the video artist Zara Matthews.
Recordings
Davies has been the subject of two portrait CDs, Troubairitz (Nonclassical Recordings, 2011) and Spine (NMC Recordings, 2012), both of which feature music composed over the last decade. Other compositions appear in various anthologies, notably on the NMC label.