composers

Stephen Montague

• The Hammer Hawk

Stephen Montague (b.1943 Syracuse, New York) is an Anglo/American composer born and educated in the USA (Florida State and Ohio State Universities) but living In Europe since 1972, first as a Fulbright Scholar in Warsaw (1972-74) and since 1974 in London where he works as a freelance composer. His music has been widely performed, featuring in numerous international festivals, most recently at the Brighton, Spitalfields (London), Vale of Glamorgan (Wales) and Kuala Lumpa (Malaysia) Music Festivals. Composer Portrait concerts devoted to Montague’s music have been given in London, New York, Houston, Vienna, St. Pölten and Budapest. Major commissions include works for the BBC Proms, Royal Festival Hall (London), The Bath Festival, works for pianist Stephen Kovacevich, percussionist Evelyn Glennie, the Hilliard Ensemble, the International Computer Music Association, and a 35-minute work for narrator and orchestra for the BT Celebration Series premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre, London, with a further 14 performances by other leading British orchestras around the UK.

Stephen Montague was a founder of Sonic Arts Network in 1980, Chair (1993-97) and Artistic Director (1998-99) of the SPNM (Society for the Promotion of New Music), Associate Composer with The Orchestra of St. Johns, London from 1995 to 1997 and Featured Composer for the City of Oxford from 1997 to 1998. Internationally, he was Guest Professor at the University of Texas – Austin in 1992, 1995, 2000 and the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 1997.

In 2004-05, Montague was Artistic Director of the Open Score Project for Contemporary Music Making for Amateurs, commissioning 10 works by leading composers including John Tavener, Michael Nyman, Frederic Rzewski and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), a project that, in 2005, was shortlisted in the education category of the RPS Music Awards.

Montague’s honours and awards include 1st Prize at the 1994 Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, France, the Ernst von Dohnányi Citation for Excellence in Composition (1995), The Ohio State University Distinguished Alumnus Award (2000), Honorary Fellow (2002) and Composer in Residence (2003) of Trinity College of Music, London. In 2004 he was made Honorary Fellow of Leeds College of Music (UK), and the CD Southern Lament – (NMC D118) - featuring the piano works of Stephen Montague played by Philip Mead, won an award from the magazine International Piano for “Best New Piano Music Recording 2006”.

Montague currently teaches composition at the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music (London). In addition to writing for traditional orchestral forces Montague has also written numerous more ‘experimental’ works such as his Horn Concerto for klaxon horn soloist and an orchestra of automobiles. Although a long term UK resident, his compositional influences are transatlantic. He comments: "I have lived in Britain since 1974 but my musical heroes remain American: I admire Charles Ives's unapologetic juxtaposition of vernacular music and the avant-garde, Henry Cowell's irreverent use of fist and arm clusters, the propulsive energy of minimalism and John Cage's radical dictum that 'all sound is music’”.

As a "virtuoso pianist" [New York Times] he has recorded for all the major European radio networks, performed at Carnegie Hall, New York City, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and Paris's Centre Pompidou. In 1985 he formed a duo with pianist Philip Mead, Montague/Mead Piano Plus, which tours internationally. He also collaborates with the sculptor, Maurice Agis, providing multi-channel electroacoustic sound environments for Agis’s giant inflatable sculptures Colourspace and Dreamspace.

Compact discs of Montague’s works are available on NMC (UK), ASV (UK), Signum (UK), Continuum (NZ), Centaur (USA), Point Records (USA) and others. In addition to music he is an active cyclist, hiker and tennis player (the former Florida Junior College Tennis Champion).