Andi Spicer - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Andrew John Preston "Andi" Spicer (born 1959 in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, U.K.), is a British electroacoustic

Electroacoustic music

Electroacoustic music originated in Western art music during its modern era following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition during the mid-20th century are associated with the activities of composers...

classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

who uses electronics (see Electronic Music (classical)) in his compositions.

The composer is also a writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

and journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

. He has contributed to The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

http://online.wsj.com/article/PA2VJBNA4R/SB114014658976576708-search.html http://online.wsj.com/article/PA2VJBNA4R/SB116673909806557115-search.html and The Gramophone

The Gramophone

Gramophone is a magazine published monthly in London by Haymarket devoted to classical music and jazz, particularly recordings. It was founded in 1923 by the Scottish author Compton Mackenzie...

as a reviewer http://www.ecmrecords.com/Press_Reactions/New_Series/1900/Pressreactions_1967.php and has written for many international newspapers, magazines and news agencies, including Dow Jones Newswires

Dow Jones Newswires

Dow Jones Newswires is the real-time financial news organization owned by Dow Jones . Founded in 1882, its primary competitors are Bloomberg L.P. and Thomson Reuters. The company reports more than 300,000 subscribers -- including brokers, traders, analysts and fund managers -- as of July 2011.-...

, The Associated Press, The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

and The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

. His music is published by Edition Tre Fontane.

History and influences

He studied economics at Aston University

Aston University

Aston University is a "plate glass" campus university situated at Gosta Green, in the city centre of Birmingham, England.Established in 1895 as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School, Aston was granted its Royal Charter as Aston University on 22 April 1966...

in Birmingham

Birmingham

and pursued a career in journalism, while composing and performing free form improvised music (see free improvisation

Free improvisation

Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....

). He lived in Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

between 1996 and 2003, after which he moved back to England. Since then he has been a member of the New Music Brighton http://www.newmusicbrighton.co.uk and London Forum http://www.forumcomposers.org.uk/ collectives of composers in the UK. His compositions have been featured at the Brighton Festival

Brighton Festival

The Brighton Festival is an annual arts festival which takes place in the city of Brighton and Hove in England each May. It was founded in 1966, and is the largest multi-art form festival in England...

, Soundwaves Festival http://www.soundwaves-festival.org.uk/programme/event03.php, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is held in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. It has a repertoire of cutting-edge jazz, orchestral, choral and electroacoustic performances, along with film, dance and music theatre...

, Goldsmiths College

Goldsmiths College

Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom which specialises in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute...

Pure Gold Festival http://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=2902, Royal College of Music

Royal College of Music

The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

in London, London COMA Summer School,http://www.coma.org/summerschool/index.html http://www.coma.org/ Bille en Tête Festival (Musique En Roue Libre) in Arras, France http://www.billeentete.org/resources/depliant2rectoverso.pdf http://www.billeentete.org/2.html and at the All Ears Contemporary Music Festival http://at.orpheusweb.co.uk/forum/concrt.htm in London, as well as at the Grahamstown Festival in South Africa and performed elsewhere in France, Sweden, Austria, Mexico and the U.S.

He is largely self-taught, although he took private lessons in composition and music theory with South African composer Martin Watt at the University of the Witwatersrand

University of the Witwatersrand

The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...

and composition workshops with British composer Michael Finnissy

Michael Finnissy

Michael Finnissy is an English composer and pianist. His music is characterised by the range of extremes often found in his work; opposing binary structures are found commonly, often seen as juxtaposing textures, register and tempi...

. His music uses serialist techniques (see serialism

Serialism

In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

), improvisation

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

, graphic notation

Graphic notation

Graphic notation is the representation of music through the use of visual symbols outside the realm of traditional music notation. Graphic notation evolved in the 1950s, and it is often used in combination with traditional music notation...

, electronics (see electronic art music) and emphasizes surface textures, but is also influenced by southern African and Asian world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

.

He is associated with the Gallery III http://www.111.co.za group of artists, musicians and multi-media artists in Johannesburg

Johannesburg

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. Spicer is among a new generation of composers in post-apartheid (see apartheid) South Africa. Other examples are Dimitri Voudouris

Dimitri Voudouris

Dimitri Voudouris [Δημητριος Βουδουρης] - [born 1961 in Athens, Greece] an electroacoustic composer and pharmacist living in South Africa who pioneered UNYAZI, the first electronic music festival and symposium on the African continent in 2005 that took place at University of the Witwatersrand, in...

, Jürgen Bräninger, Cobi van Tonder, Hannes Taljaard

Hannes Taljaard

Hannes Taljaard is a South African classical music composer.Taljaard's compositions have been performed in South Africa and Europe and he won first prize in the Flores Iuventutis competition in Ghent, Belgium in 1994/95...

,http://sacomposers.up.ac.za/t_Taljaard_Hannes.html Michael Blake (see Michael Blake - Composer)http://sacomposers.up.ac.za/b_Blake_Michael.html Robert Fokkens

Robert Fokkens

Robert Fokkens is a South African classical music composer. He is among a new generation of younger composers in post-apartheid South Africa. He was educated in Cape Town at Rondebosch Boys' School....

and Spicer's teacher Martin Watt.

Compositions

In Anglo Boer War (1999) he explored cluster note (see tone clusters) and microtonal techniques. The piece is a strident anti-war composition written for the hundredth anniversary of the Anglo Boer War (see Second Boer War

Second Boer War

The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...

) and was a collaboration with the artist James de Villiers.

His 63 Moons (2003) composition was heavily influenced by Javanese gamelan music, Shona mbira

Mbira

In African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...

music (see Shona music

Shona music

Shona music is the music of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. There are several different types of traditional Shona music including mbira, singing, hosho and drumming. Very often, this music will be accompanied by dancing, and participation by the audience...

) and contemporary minimalist (see minimalist music

Minimalist music

Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

) composers.

Click Language (2004) continued Spicer's African themes and uses sampled words from southern African click languages such as Xhosa (see Xhosa language

Xhosa language

Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...

), Zulu (see Zulu language

Zulu language

Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...

) and Khoisan languages

Khoisan languages

The Khoisan languages are the click languages of Africa which do not belong to other language families. They include languages indigenous to southern and eastern Africa, though some, such as the Khoi languages, appear to have moved to their current locations not long before the Bantu expansion...

as a sound patina for four percussionists, comprising vibraphone

Vibraphone

The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....

, marimba

Marimba

The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...

, waterphone

Waterphone

A waterphone is a type of atonal acoustic musical instrument constructed largely of a stainless steel resonator "bowl" with a cylindrical "neck", which may or may not contain a small amount of water, and with brass rods around the rim of the bowl. The waterphone produces a vibrant ethereal type of...

and other hand-held instruments. Baobab (2003) employs polyrhythms inspired by southern African drumming and features the vibraphone and marimba. There is a version of Baobab for harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

(2006), written for Polish harpsichordist Kasia Tomczak-Feltrin.http://www.harpsichord.org.uk/guests/kasiatomczak.htm. He is presently writing an opera for video based on Arno Schmidt

Arno Schmidt

Arno Schmidt was a German author and translator.-Biography:Born in Hamburg, son of a police constable, Schmidt moved with his widowed mother to Lauban and attended the secondary school in Görlitz. He then worked as a clerk in a textile company in Greiffenberg...

's novel The Egghead Republic (Die Gelehrtenrepublik)http://www.boorberg.de/sixcms/detail.php?&id=139508 http://www.literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=15040&ausgabe=201012.

Recent works have explored live electronics and acoustic instrument blends,http://www.coteo.com/opalenews/index.php?search=&index=&lg=1&id_bouton=6&fiche=14087&page including midi instruments. Since the beginning of 2006, he has worked closely with French woodwind and electronic music soloist Julien Feltrin.http://www.julienfeltrin.blogspot.com/ http://www.rcm.ac.uk/Events/Recorder%20Day Spicer has also worked with London-based percussion ensemble Brake Drum Assembly. http://www.brakedrumassembly.co.uk/ He formed the ensemble Caos Harmonia http://www.111.co.za/Archive/Multimedia_files/Caos%20Web/caos_harmonia_and_111_production.htm to perform his music in 1997.

Film and video

Austrian video artist Peter Gold http://www.cinematography.at produced a short film for three movements of Anglo Boer War for the 2006 All Ears Contemporary Music Festival in London. Antarctica (1995–1996) is an early work for electronics written for an unreleased video of Antarctic (see Antarctica) landscapes.

Art installations

Spicer collaborated with performance artist Paolo Giudici in the installation Thesis at the Hockney Gallery at the Royal College of Art

Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...

in London in 2006. Painter/multimedia artist James de Villiers worked with Spicer in The Architecture of Air,http://www.111.co.za/Archive/ArchivePage/arc1.jpg which toured the US, Mexico and South Africa in 2001-2003 with Transformations,http://www.111.co.za/Architecture%20of%20Air/transmigrations_at_pretoria_art_.htm an exhibition of South African art. Inside, Outside (2001) is an electronic piece for a James de Villiers' installation of the same title shown at Carfax http://www.carfax.co.za/ in Johannesburg.

Selected works

Antarctica (1995-6) - for electronics, video
Virtually Ambient Shostakovich (1997) - for voices, sampler
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...

and keyboards
Anglo Boer War (1999) – for voices, strings and electronic manipulation
String Quartet Four (2000) – for string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
Sequenzas (2000) – for piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
Auto da Fe (2002) – for orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
In Memoriam Valdemar Rodriquez (2002) - for orchestra
63 Moons (2003) – variations for world music instruments, percussion and synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

s
Bigga Digga (2004) - for voices
Shakespeare Whispers (2004) - for voices
Baobab (2004) – for percussion quartet
Click Language (2005) – for percussion quartet and electronics
pHyTHoN (2005) - for French horn & piano
Four Pieces (2005) - for brass quintet
Bird (2006) – for vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....

and electronics
Euclid Alone (2006) – for Paetzold Great Bass, tenor recorder
Recorder
The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...

s & electronics, French horn and percussion quartet
The Anthropic Principle (2006) – for midi wind controller
Wind controller
A wind controller, sometimes referred to as a "wind synth", or "wind synthesizer", can be defined as a wind instrument capable of controlling one or more music synthesizers or other devices. Wind controllers are most commonly played and fingered like a woodwind instrument, usually the saxophone,...

and laptop
Laptop
A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...
Polonnaruwa (2006) – for laptop electronics
Baobab (2004) – revised for harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

(2006)
Haut Voltage (2006) - improvisation for midi wind controller, clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

and laptop electronics
Tiktaalik (2006) - for any instrument
The Giraffe Sleeper (2007) - for chamber orchestra, piano and laptop electronics
Cold, Cold (2007) - for laptop electronics and manipulated voice, words by Chris Edwards
For Dimitri Voudouris (2007) - for laptop electronics, electronically manipulated alto saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

and French horn
The Antikythera Mechanism (2008) - for natural horn
Natural horn
The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the ancestor of the modern-day horn, and is differentiated by its lack of valves. It consists of a mouthpiece, some long coiled tubing, and a large flared bell. Pitch changes are made through a few different techniques:* Modulating the lip tension as...

& electronics
Nazca (2008) - for chamber orchestra & laptop electronics
Hydrogen (2008) - for flute & laptop electronics
A Scent Of Knife Blossom (2009) - for solo cello
For James de Villiers (2009) - for laptop electronics
Archaeopteryx (2010) - for low recorder quartet and electronics
The Book of Graphic Scores (2010) - for any instrument

External links

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