composers

Philip Cashian

• Music for the Night Sky

Philip Cashian's many commissioned works include pieces for the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the Composers Ensemble, the Kreutzer and Bingham Quartets, the Endymion Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and the Haffner Wind Quintet. Orchestral works include 'Nightmaze', written for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales 1991 tour of Japan, which led to further commissions from the Britten-Pears Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia, Sinfonia 21 and the Britten Sinfonia and 'Night Journeys' for the London Symphony Orchestra who gave the first performance in 1998 at Manchester's Bridgwater Hall.

He was born in Manchester in 1963 and studied with Oliver Knussen, Simon Bainbridge and, at Tanglewood, with Lukas Foss and has been awarded the Britten Prize, Mendelssohn Scholarship and the PRS Prize. Cashian is active as a 'composer in education' and has written a number of works for children and amateur musicians. These include 'The Forest of Clocks' for voices and large ensemble and pieces for the Associated Board's 'Spectrum I and II' solo piano collections. Other recent commissions have included Spitbite (Britten Sinfonia), The House of Night (OSJ), Io (BBC National Orchestra of Wales), Three Pieces for chamber orchestra and Skein (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) and Tableaux which the Northern Sinfonia commissioned for the 2003 BBC Proms and a European tour. In 2006 Sarah Nicolls gave the first performance of his Piano Concerto with the London Sinfonietta under Zsolt Nagy.

Works for smaller forces include A Sea of Tales for Melinda Maxwell and Endymion, So lonely for Mary King and the Kreutzer Quartet as well as pieces for the Haffner Wind Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, The New Music Players, Paul Watkins, Alan Hacker and the Schubert Ensemble. He has also worked with the choreographer Ian Spink and written for The Knack at ENO studio.He has a close relationship with the Composers Ensemble for whom he has written, to date, half a dozen pieces. Recordings of his music are available on the NMC, Usk, Riverrun and BGS labels He was appointed Head of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in the summer of 2007.

New Voices - BMIC
newvoices@bmic.co.uk