“Composing really began at university where I was intending to focus on saxophone performance… The kaleidoscopic world of contemporary classical music burst open for me, and it was during my undergraduate studies that I decided to try pursuing composition as a career.”
Mark is a composer of chamber, orchestral, and vocal music and regularly collaborates with writers, artists, and dancers. His music often comes with bundles of extra-musical connections, embracing far-reaching literary and philosophical ideas, but its impact is a physical one. Mark’s work is constructed in detailed and intricate layers, whilst always focussing on the drama, energy, and expressive power of the music.
What does being Mark’s patron look like?
Mark will share key moments in the process of bringing his new opera – premiering at Welsh National Opera’s 2024/25 season – to life.
Alongside this, patrons are invited to connect with Mark directly about his work.
Supporting a composer on Music Patron gives you a first-hand perspective on the many elements within the creative process, and an understanding of an authentic journey of a composer. You can find out more about what it’s like to be a patron here.
Biography
Mark received the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize in 2006 for Sudden Light (BBC Symphony Orchestra). Further orchestral commissions followed (The Dawn Halts, Tirlun) before the BBC National Orchestra of Wales appointed him Resident Composer between 2011 and 2016 resulting in a series of large-scale orchestral works (Lyra, Heartland, A Violence of Gifts). Recent orchestral works include Three Interludes (Welsh National Opera), Sapiens (London Sinfonietta) and Outside (BBC National Orchestra of Wales).
Mark’s chamber and vocal music includes Voices on the Air (Uproar), The Breaking Wheel (Mark Simpson and Richard Uttley), Five Memos (Hyeyoon Park and Huw Watkins), Parable (London Sinfonietta), Lines Written a Few Miles Below (Rambert Dance Company), We Have Found a Better Land (BBC National Chorus of Wales) and The Soul Candle for baritone and piano. Mark has created vocal works for the stage (The Mare’s Tale, The Song of Rhiannon) and his abiding interest in dance has resulted in much collaboration with choreographers.
Mark has enjoyed associations with BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Rambert Dance Company, Britten Pears Arts, Handel House Museum, Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, the Visby International Centre for Composers and the MacDowell Colony. He was chair of the British Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music between 2014 and 2018 and Director of Composition at Royal Holloway between 2007 and 2022. The University of London awarded Mark the title of Professor of Composition in 2017 and in 2022 he was appointed Professor of Music at the Royal College of Music. Mark won a British Composer Award for Five Memos in 2016 and in 2019 Sapiens was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award.
Listen 5 Memos: II. Quickness (extract)
