Mark-Anthony Turnage signs with Boosey & Hawkes
We are pleased to announce that Mark-Anthony Turnage, one of the most admired and widely-performed composers of his generation, has signed a long-term exclusive publishing agreement with Boosey & Hawkes.
The new contract, which runs from 1 January 2003, covers all future Turnage compositions starting with commissions for Ensemble Modern and the Nash Ensemble. Turnage’s existing output, including recent works premiered in January, remains published by Schott, and both publishers will be collaborating closely in the overall promotion of Turnage's music.
Turnage's future projects reflect his international stature, including commissions for the New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Choir and Berlin Philharmonic, the Hallé and clarinetist Michael Collins, Nash Ensemble, Ensemble Modern and flautist Dietmar Wiesner, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's contemporary music ensemble.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra appointed Mark-Anthony Turnage as its first Associate Composer in 2000, and this fruitful partnership is celebrated in a weekend festival of Turnage's music at the Barbican Centre on 17-19 January 2003. Chandos has recently released a disc of works by Turnage, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Slatkin, featuring Fractured Lines, Another Set To, Silent Cities and Four Horned Fandango (Chandos 10018).
Boosey & Hawkes is widely regarded as having the world's top catalogue in 20th century classical music, including the master works of Stravinsky, Britten, Bartók, Copland, Prokofieff, Rachmaninoff, Strauss and many others. Boosey & Hawkes's select group of contemporary composers, which Mark-Anthony Turnage now joins, is one of the most prestigious in the world of classical music publishing. Composers who have signed with Boosey & Hawkes over the past two decades include John Adams, Steve Reich, James MacMillan, Louis Andriessen, Elliott Carter, Christopher Rouse, Harrison Birtwistle, Magnus Lindberg, Olga Neuwirth, Brett Dean, Unsuk Chin, Steven Mackey, Meredith Monk, Elena Kats-Chernin, Edgar Meyer, Aaron Jay Kernis and Tod Machover.
Biographical information
Born in 1960, Mark-Anthony Turnage studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Oliver Knussen and John Lambert, and at Tanglewood with Gunther Schuller. With the prize-winning Night Dances written at age 21, and the opera Greek commissioned by Hans Werner Henze for the Munich Biennale, Turnage emerged in the 1980s as a leading young British composer, daring to forge his own path between modernism and tradition, skilfully blending together classical and jazz styles. His four-year period as Composer in Association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle, creating works such as Three Screaming Popes and Momentum, developed his orchestral mastery and liberated his expressive freedom. Turnage's international reputation was secured in the 1990s with the saxophone concerto Your Rockaby and Blood on the Floor, collaborations with jazz musicians John Scofield, Peter Erskine and saxophonist Martin Robertson. His opera The Silver Tassie was premiered to great acclaim at English National Opera in 2000 and revived this year, and recent works have been composed for leading performing artists including Christian Lindberg, Evelyn Glennie and Yuri Bashmet.
Mark-Anthony Turnage is represented by Cathy Nelson at Van Walsum Management for commissions and general management.
For a PDF copy of the press release of the announcement, click here.
Read an interview with Mark-Anthony Turnage about his music
> Further information on Work: Crying Out Loud
Photo: © Keith Saunders