GEOFFREY PALMER
Composer "What I really liked was to remove the panel below the keyboard of my father’s upright piano, and play with the magical resonances of the strings, getting totally absorbed in the sounds I created. I would also graft my own voice into this welter of sound - all much more fun than doing the piano practice I was supposed to do." So writes Geoffrey Palmer, describing his earliest musical activities. And not much has changed in the past forty years or so, he claims! Exploration of resonance and purity of melodic line still dominate his musical thought. One recent fascination is with quartertones - the notes between the notes of the piano. His exploration of this sound world began in earnest in 1995 with his second string quartet, La Maestà - first premièred at an SPNM Showcase at the Cheltenham Festival and brought into the mainstream Festival in 1999. Techniques learnt in that work were developed in Paradis moins cinq, a set of songs commissioned for The Purcell School with funds provided by The Holst Foundation, and have informed most of his recent works written for professional performers. Geoff studied both at Huddersfield and Bristol, where he gained a PhD. For nearly twenty years he worked in schools in the West Country before moving firstly to the edge of London and then to the north Yorkshire coast, where he composes in a small house at the sea’s edge and works with children in some of the large industrial towns of the north-east. He was awarded joint First Prize in the 1997 Classic CD Composing Competition, won the 1998 Music Haven Composing Competition and gained Second Prize in the 1999 English Poetry and Song Society Songwriting Competition. His music was selected for inclusion in Short Cuts, a CD issued by SPNM representing supported British music from 1950, and for the 2000 Songbook recital at the Wigmore Hall in London. In addition to the new string quartet to be played by the Sorrel Quartet at the Cheltenham Festival, this summer’s premières include a piece to be presented in an SPNM project alongside the Tony Cragg exhibition at the Liverpool Tate, Seas of Light and Dark for a trio of flute, viola and piano at The Purcell Room on the South Bank, and a work commissioned by the Tees Valley Youth Orchestra for their forthcoming tour of Poland. J Audrey Ellison International Artists' Management Member of International Artist Managers’ Association 135 Stevenage Road, Fulham, London, SW6 6PB, U.K. Tel: +44 (0)20 7381 9751 Fax: +44 (0)20 7381 2406 E-Mail: Audrey@Ellison-Intl.Freeserve.co.uk Cellists Cello & Organ/Harpsichord Chamber Ensembles Cimbalom Composers Conductors Euphonium Guitarists Harpists Harpsichord Orchestras Organists Pianists Piano Accompanists Piano Duo Violinists Violists |