composers

Martin Butler

• Spring Rounds

Martin Butler was born in Romsey, England, in 1960 and studied at the University of Manchester and the Royal Northern College of Music. In 1983 he received a Fulbright Award for study at Princeton University, USA, where he was resident until 1987, and in 1985 he received the Master of Fine Arts.

In 1988 he was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship which enabled him to spend several weeks at Tempo Reale, Berio's studio in Florence, and in 1994 was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Northern College of Music. He is currently Professor of Music at the University of Sussex.

Butler's works are widely performed and broadcast both in the UK and abroad. He has received commissions from, amongst others, the BBC (O Rio was first performed at the 1991 Proms), the London Sinfonietta (Concertino and Jazz Machines, of which the latter was played at the 1995 Venice Biennale), and the Cheltenham and Canterbury festivals. In June 1994 Mecklenburgh Opera premiered the operatic adventure story Craig's Progress, with a libretto by Stephen Pruslin, which was adapted for radio broadcast by BBC Radio 3. Butler was featured composer at the 1995 Vale of Glamorgan Festival where his Clarinet Quintet was premiered.

A CD of chamber music featuring Tin Pan Ballet, Bluegrass Variations, On the Rocks, Jazz Machines, and Going with the Grain has been issued on the Lorelt label. Two discs of Butler's music have been released by NMC: the string quartet, Songs and Dances from a Haunted Place, performed by the Bingham Quartet, and two orchestral pieces (O Rio and Fixed Doubles) played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Butler's pieces include Fin de Siècle, a short orchestral piece for the English Northern Philharmonia, Carillon for the Composers Ensemble at the 1998 Brighton Festival; American Rounds, written for the Schubert Ensemble and premiered at the 1998 Cheltenham Festival; and Suzanne's River Song for violin and piano commissioned by the BBC for the 1999 Proms.

His chamber opera A Better Place, commissioned by the ENO Studio, was premiered by ENO at the Coliseum in London in July 2001, conducted by Paul Daniel, and a substantial work entitled Two Rivers was premiered by the Oxford Bach Choir and Britten Sinfonia in December 2001.

Works by Butler include the Concertino for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, written for Murray McLachlan and the Chetham's Symphony Orchestra in 2002, and Sequenza Notturna, a piano quartet composed for the Schubert Ensemble which was premiered in 2003 and has subsequently been toured around the UK, USA, and Canada.

The Schubert Ensemble marked the start of a 'Composer Portrait Series' with a programme of works by Martin Butler at the Purcell Room in June 2005. Two new works received premieres in May 2006: Sentinels for string quartet and viola was premiered by the Brodsky Quartet and John Metcalfe at the 2006 Brighton Festival, and William Howard gave the premiere of Funérailles, a substantial new work for piano, at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.