Piano and electronics when in the hands of these two exceptional artists can weave an astonishingly magical spell. Exceptionally beautiful is the track entitled âLux Perpetuaâ; a serene and gentle landscape sculpted in subtle sounds.

9 MP3 Songs
CLASSICAL: Contemporary, AVANT GARDE: Modern Composition

Details:
Philip Mead studied at the Royal Academy of Music and became an international prize winner in contemporary music. He has been actively involved in contemporary music for many years and has performed throughout the world. He has worked closely with such composers as Stockhausen, Reich and Tippett and commissioned many new works. He has been at the forefront of developing a repertoire for piano and electronics working with all the major electronic composers including Jonathan Harvey, Denis Smalley, Javier Alvarez, Horacio Vaggione, Daniel Teruggi, Simon Emmerson and Stephen Montague. He has performed this repertoire extensively particularly in the group Montague/Mead Piano Plus,and with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris. Many of these works are available on CD.

Since 1997 Philip Mead has also been researching the possibilities of combining the piano with various brass and percussion ensembles, and has commissioned work from such composers as Diana Burrell, Nicholas Sackman and Geoffrey Poole. These works feature on a recent CD issued by NMC.

Amongst the piano classics of the Twentieth Century, the music of radical American composers has always had a central place in Philip Meadâs repertoire. He has performed the music of Charles Ives extensively in Britain and America and in 2001 Metier released a double CD of Ivesâ complete solo piano music which became Observer CD of the week. This was followed by a double CD of the complete solo piano works of George Crumb on Metier and the complete solo repertoire of Stephen Montague on NMC. Future plans include a project to record the entire piano music of Henry Cowell. In 1996 Philip Mead made his debut at New Yorkâs Carnegie Hall performing the Henry Cowell Piano Concerto with the American Symphony Orchestra during the Bard Festival, repeated at the Barbican in January 2004 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Philip Mead is Founder and Artistic Director of the British Contemporary Piano Competition, a past director of the Society for the Promotion of New Music, and has recently been appointed a research fellow at the University of Hertfordshire.


Rob Godman is a composer, sound designer and programmer. He has a passionate interest in how sound behaves acoustically and has developed a number of techniques that control âvirtual spacesâ - the creation of acoustic spaces that are capable of evolution with potential for responsive control.

Rob has received performances from artists such as the Siobhan Davies Dance Company, The BBC Singers, Evelyn Glennie, Gemini, Philip Mead, Kate Romano, Andrew Sparling and the Sackbut and Cornett Ensemble QuintEssential. He has had works performed in the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, Croatia, France and Spain over the past two years.

Rob is currently exploring two main areas of research within composition - 1, a potential collision between the artistic, scientific and archaeological merits of reconstructing the resonating vases as specified by the architect Vitruvius in Roman theatres; and 2, live performance and real-time interaction with spatialization.

Recent compositions include: âEphemeral Cube/Solidâ (in collaboration with glassmaker Colin Reid) - an imaginary exploration of the resonance of a piece of glass, heard from within, rather than outside in the air. âinside the eye of silenceâ - (for New Adventures in Sound Art on Toronto Island, Canada in collaboration with Vivienne Spiteri). What might happen if we are inside the harpsichord, or even inside the strings, keys and wood that the instrument is made of? âThe Darkâ (commissioned and produced by Braunarts, funded by Culture Online) - an installation work located in a pitch-black space where visitors have the opportunity of moving and interacting with their surroundings.

âHalo - a duet for Piano and Responsive Electronicsâ received its American premiere during the ICMC, 2006 in New Orleans.

At present, he is completing a large-scale commission for Philip Mead, exploring interaction between pianist and sound-projectionist (Duel, ACE funded commission 2006).

Rob is a Senior Lecturer in Music Technology at the University of Hertfordshire.

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