Huw Watkins
Encyclopedia
Huw Watkins is a British composer and pianist. Born in South Wales, he studied piano and composition at Chetham's School of Music
in Manchester, where he received piano lessons from Peter Lawson
. He then went on to read Music at Kings College, Cambridge
, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway
and Alexander Goehr
, and completed an MMus in composition at the Royal College of Music
, where he studied with Julian Anderson
. Huw Watkins was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert
Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he is now a Professor of Composition.
premiered Watkins’ Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments, which had been commissioned by Faber Music. The review in The Times
declared that “at 22, Huw Watkins is already a composer to be reckoned with”. The work has since been performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
in London, Paris, Copenhagen and Aldeburgh under the direction of Sakari Oramo
and Peter Rundel.
In 2000, the BBC
National Orchestra of Wales gave the first performance of Watkins’ Sinfonietta under Grant Llewellyn, and as a result of the collaboration, a piano concerto
was commissioned for the same orchestra. This was given its premiere - with Watkins at the piano - in May 2002, under Martyn Brabbins.
His works include a Nocturne for solo horn and chamber orchestra - first performed and recorded in March 2002 by David Jolley and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra under Mischa Santora; a Cello Sonata
, recorded with his brother Paul Watkins
for Nimbus Records
on a CD of 20th Century British cello music; String Quartet
No. 3, written for the Belcea Quartet
and premiered at London's Wigmore Hall
in 2004.
More recently Watkins’ works include a London Concerto, commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra
to mark their 100th year; Rondo for Birmingham Contemporary Music Group; a Nash Ensemble commission celebrating their 40th Anniversary and a Double Concerto for viola, cello and orchestra premiered at the 2005 BBC Proms
. Watkins’ In My Craft or Sullen Art for tenor and string quartet was premiered by Mark Padmore
and the Petersen Quartet
at the Wigmore Hall in May 2007. His composition Dream has just been released on the Britten Sinfonia
own label, on an album entitled Songs of the Sky.
Chamber music
has always been central to Watkins’ output: in 2001 his String Quartet No. 2 was premiered at the Cheltenham Festival
by the Petersen Quartet
, and the Brahms Ensemble Hamburg gave the first performance of his Variations on a Schubert Song at the Gstaad Festival. He recorded his Cello Sonata with Paul Watkins for Nimbus Records and premiered Fantasy for viola and piano with Lawrence Power in 2006. His String Quartet No. 3 was written for the Belcea Quartet, who gave its premiere at the Wigmore Hall in February 2004. Also at the same Hall, the Nash Ensemble premiered their commission Gig in 2005, and Alina Ibragimova
gave the world premiere of Partita for solo violin. This was broadcast as part of BBC Radio
3’s 2006 lunchtime concert series.
As a pianist, Huw Watkins is regularly heard on BBC Radio three
, both as a soloist and with artists such as Alina Ibragimova, Daniel Hope, Nicholas Daniel
and Alexandra Wood. He has given premieres of works by Alexander Goehr
, Peter Maxwell Davies
and Mark-Anthony Turnage
. He has performed concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra of the Swan as well as being the Britten Sinfonia’s pianist. He has recorded Thomas Adès
’ song cycle
The Lover in Winter with the countertenor Robin Blaze for EMI Classics
, and his recording of contemporary British music for violin and piano with Alexandra Wood was released on Usk in 2005. His most recent recording was of the piano cycle Symmetry Disorders Reach by Alexander Goehr
, for Wergo.
Watkins' Violin Concerto was premiered at The Proms
on 17 August 2010, performed by Alina Ibragimova, for whom it was written.
Chamber, Small ensemble and solo works
Chetham's School of Music
Chetham's School of Music , familiarly known as "Chets", is a specialist independent co-educational music school, situated in Manchester city centre, in North West England. It was established in 1969, incorporating Chetham's Hospital School, founded as a charity school by Humphrey Chetham in 1653...
in Manchester, where he received piano lessons from Peter Lawson
Peter Lawson
Peter Lawson was an Ontario political figure. He represented Norfolk South in the 1st Canadian Parliament as a Liberal member....
. He then went on to read Music at Kings College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway
Robin Holloway
Robin Greville Holloway is an English composer.-Early life:From 1952 to 1957, he was a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral...
and Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr is an English composer and academic.Goehr was born in Berlin in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's...
, and completed an MMus in composition at the 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...
, where he studied with Julian Anderson
Julian Anderson
Julian Anderson is a British composer and teacher of composition.-Biography:Anderson studied at Westminster School, then with John Lambert at the Royal College of Music, with Alexander Goehr at Cambridge University, privately with Tristan Murail in Paris, and on courses given by Olivier Messiaen,...
. Huw Watkins was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert
Kit Lambert
Christopher "Kit" Sebastian Lambert was a record producer and the manager for The Who.-Early life:Kit Lambert was the son of noted composer, Constant Lambert...
Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he is now a Professor of Composition.
Career
In 1999, the Nash EnsembleNash Ensemble
The Nash Ensemble of London is an acclaimed English chamber ensemble. It was founded by Artistic Director Amelia Freedman in 1964, while she was a student at the Royal Academy of Music, and was named after the Nash Terraces around the Academy...
premiered Watkins’ Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments, which had been commissioned by Faber Music. The review in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
declared that “at 22, Huw Watkins is already a composer to be reckoned with”. The work has since been performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group is a chamber orchestra based in Birmingham, England. BCMG specialises in the performance of new and contemporary music. BCMG performs regularly at the CBSO Centre and Symphony Hall in Birmingham...
in London, Paris, Copenhagen and Aldeburgh under the direction of Sakari Oramo
Sakari Oramo
Sakari Markus Oramo OBE is a Finnish conductor.Oramo started his career as a violinist and concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1989, he enrolled in Jorma Panula's conducting class at the Sibelius Academy...
and Peter Rundel.
In 2000, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
National Orchestra of Wales gave the first performance of Watkins’ Sinfonietta under Grant Llewellyn, and as a result of the collaboration, a piano concerto
Piano concerto
A piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...
was commissioned for the same orchestra. This was given its premiere - with Watkins at the piano - in May 2002, under Martyn Brabbins.
His works include a Nocturne for solo horn and chamber orchestra - first performed and recorded in March 2002 by David Jolley and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra under Mischa Santora; a Cello Sonata
Cello sonata
A cello sonata is usually a sonata written for cello and piano, though other instrumentations are used, such as solo cello. The most famous Romantic-era cellos sonatas are those written by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven...
, recorded with his brother Paul Watkins
Paul Watkins
Paul Watkins may refer to:*Paul Watkins , Welsh cellist and conductor*Paul Watkins *Paul Watkins...
for Nimbus Records
Nimbus Records
Nimbus Records is a British record company specializing in classical music recordings.Nimbus was founded in 1972 by the late bass singer Numa Labinsky and the brothers Michael and Gerald Reynolds and has traditionally been based at the Wyastone Leys mansion site, near Monmouth and the English/Welsh...
on a CD of 20th Century British cello music; 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...
No. 3, written for the Belcea Quartet
Belcea Quartet
The Belcea Quartet is a string quartet, formed in 1994, under the leadership of violinist Corina Belcea.-History:The quartet was formed while its members were studying at the Royal College of Music in London. Whilst there, they were coached by the Chilingirian Quartet...
and premiered at London's Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...
in 2004.
More recently Watkins’ works include a London Concerto, commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
to mark their 100th year; Rondo for Birmingham Contemporary Music Group; a Nash Ensemble commission celebrating their 40th Anniversary and a Double Concerto for viola, cello and orchestra premiered at the 2005 BBC Proms
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
. Watkins’ In My Craft or Sullen Art for tenor and string quartet was premiered by Mark Padmore
Mark Padmore
Mark Padmore is a British tenor appearing in concerts, recitals, and opera.Born in London 8 March 1961, and raised in Canterbury, Kent in England. Padmore studied clarinet and piano prior to his gaining a choral scholarship to King's College, Cambridge...
and the Petersen Quartet
Petersen Quartet
The Petersen Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1979 by students at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory in Berlin, including founding first violinist, Ulrike Petersen, who has recently rejoined the quartet to alternate in the first chair with Conrad Muck...
at the Wigmore Hall in May 2007. His composition Dream has just been released on the Britten Sinfonia
Britten Sinfonia
Britten Sinfonia is a chamber orchestra ensemble based in Cambridge, UK. It was created in 1992, following an initiative from Eastern Arts and a number of key figures including Nicholas Cleobury, who recognised the need for an orchestra in the East of England. It is a flexible ensemble composed of...
own label, on an album entitled Songs of the Sky.
Chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
has always been central to Watkins’ output: in 2001 his String Quartet No. 2 was premiered at the Cheltenham Festival
Cheltenham Festival
The Cheltenham Festival is one of the most prestigious meetings in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom, and has race prize money second only to the Grand National...
by the Petersen Quartet
Petersen Quartet
The Petersen Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1979 by students at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory in Berlin, including founding first violinist, Ulrike Petersen, who has recently rejoined the quartet to alternate in the first chair with Conrad Muck...
, and the Brahms Ensemble Hamburg gave the first performance of his Variations on a Schubert Song at the Gstaad Festival. He recorded his Cello Sonata with Paul Watkins for Nimbus Records and premiered Fantasy for viola and piano with Lawrence Power in 2006. His String Quartet No. 3 was written for the Belcea Quartet, who gave its premiere at the Wigmore Hall in February 2004. Also at the same Hall, the Nash Ensemble premiered their commission Gig in 2005, and Alina Ibragimova
Alina Ibragimova
Alina Ibragimova is a Russian-born violinist residing in the UK.-Early life and education:Ibragimova was born in Polevskoy, Russia in a Tatar family. Her family was musical, and she began playing the violin at the age of four...
gave the world premiere of Partita for solo violin. This was broadcast as part of BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
3’s 2006 lunchtime concert series.
As a pianist, Huw Watkins is regularly heard on BBC Radio three
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
, both as a soloist and with artists such as Alina Ibragimova, Daniel Hope, Nicholas Daniel
Nicholas Daniel
Nicholas Daniel is a British oboist and conductor. He won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition at eighteen and has since become one of the United Kingdom's most distinguished soloists...
and Alexandra Wood. He has given premieres of works by Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr is an English composer and academic.Goehr was born in Berlin in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's...
, Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
and Mark-Anthony Turnage
Mark-Anthony Turnage
Mark-Anthony Turnage is a prolific English composer of classical music. His initial musical studies were with Oliver Knussen, John Lambert, and later with Gunther Schuller...
. He has performed concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra of the Swan as well as being the Britten Sinfonia’s pianist. He has recorded Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
’ song cycle
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
The Lover in Winter with the countertenor Robin Blaze for EMI Classics
EMI Classics
EMI Classics is a record label of EMI, formed in 1990 in order to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogs for internationally distributed classical music releases....
, and his recording of contemporary British music for violin and piano with Alexandra Wood was released on Usk in 2005. His most recent recording was of the piano cycle Symmetry Disorders Reach by Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr is an English composer and academic.Goehr was born in Berlin in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's...
, for Wergo.
Watkins' Violin Concerto was premiered at The Proms
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
on 17 August 2010, performed by Alina Ibragimova, for whom it was written.
Selected works
Orchestral and Large ensemble works- Violin Concerto (2010)
- Anthem for orchestra (2005)
- Broken Consort for ensemble (2008)
- Crime Fiction a chamber operaChamber operaChamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small...
in one act (2008) - Double Concerto for viola, cello and orchestra (2005)
- London Concerto for violin, bassoon, harp and orchestra (2005)
- Nocturne for horn and chamber orchestra (2001)
- Piano Concerto (2002)
- Rondo for chamber ensemble (2005)
- Sinfonietta for orchestra (2000)
Chamber, Small ensemble and solo works
- Coruscation and Reflection for violin and piano (1998)
- Dream for clarinet, violin and piano (2006)
- Fanfares for soprano saxophoneSoprano saxophoneThe soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...
and piano (2006) - Fantasy for viola and piano (2006)
- Four Spencer Pieces for piano (2001)
- Gig for flute, clarinet, harp and string quartet (2005)
- In My Craft or Sullen Art for tenor and string quartet (2007)
- Partita for solo violin (2006)
- Pièce d'orgue for solo organ (2005)
- Postlude for flute, clarinet, harp and string quartet (2007)
- Prelude for solo cello (2007)
- Romance for violin and piano (2003)
- Sad Steps for piano and string sextetString sextetIn classical music, a string sextet is a composition written for six string instruments, or a group of six musicians who perform such a composition. Most string sextets have been written for an ensemble consisting of two violins, two violas, and two cellos....
(2008) - Sonata for cello and piano (2000)
- Sonata for Cello and Eight Instruments (1999)
- String Quartet No.2 (2001)
- String Quartet No.3 (2004)
- Suite for Harp (2006)
- Tarantella for violin and piano (2002)
- Three Welsh Songs for Strings (2008–2009)
- Trio for horn, violin and piano (2008)
- Two Chorales for clarinet and piano (2000)
External links
- Huw Watkins' page from Schott site
- Huw Watkins' profile on Myspace.com
- Huw Watkins in the British Music Information Centre
- Huw Watkins' page in composition today
- Huw Watkins' page at Hazard Chase website