Grace-Evangeline Mason signs publishing contract with Boosey & Hawkes
Acclaimed young composer Grace-Evangeline Mason has signed an exclusive publishing agreement with Boosey & Hawkes to represent past and future works worldwide. Scores under the new contract include The Imagined Forest to be premiered at the BBC Proms on 5 September.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 12 August 2021
Boosey & Hawkes is delighted to welcome 26-year-old British composer Grace-Evangeline Mason to its publishing roster. The new agreement, signed in August, covers existing works, including her much-admired chamber opera The Yellow Wallpaper, together with a busy schedule of future commissions. Winner of the BBC Young Composer of the Year in 2013 and the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize in 2018, Grace-Evangeline Mason is currently completing her Doctoral studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London alongside her composing career.
The first work to be premiered under the new agreement, The Imagined Forest, is unveiled at the BBC Proms on 5 September by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and its new Chief Conductor Domingo Hindoyan. The 11-minute orchestral score was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and the RLPO and can be heard broadcast live from the Royal Albert Hall in London and on iPlayer. The orchestra has programmed a further performance of The Imagined Forest on 24 February 2022 in Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall.
Mason’s output embraces operatic, orchestral, chamber, choral and electronic works, which have travelled widely both in the UK and internationally, including performances in European countries, the USA, Canada, Japan and South Africa. She creates ethereal sonic landscapes often inspired by art, poetry and literature to take a listener on a narrative journey. She describes how “I always feel I’m chasing an elusive soundworld, and with each piece I’m getting a bit closer to capturing it”.
Janis Susskind, Managing Director of Boosey & Hawkes, comments: "We are delighted to be embarking on this new relationship with Grace-Evangeline Mason. Her chamber opera, The Yellow Wallpaper, was one of the first works to capture our attention, revealing a natural gift for theatrical expression, and further acquaintance with her music only strengthened our resolve to invite her to join Boosey & Hawkes. Our international promotion teams look forward to sharing her music far and wide."
> Watch a video of The Yellow Wallpaper
Grace-Evangeline Mason comments: “I am elated to have signed with Boosey & Hawkes. Some of my very first music scores were published by B&H and so to now be included within its catalogue, with its rich history of illustrious and distinguished composers, is a true honour. I am looking forward to developing our relationship further and to all that the future holds with B&H.”
For further information visit:
> Grace-Evangeline Mason at Boosey & Hawkes
> Grace-Evangeline Mason’s website
About Grace-Evangeline Mason
Born in 1994, Grace-Evangeline Mason grew up in the West Midlands, learning trombone, clarinet and piano. She studied music at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and the University of Oxford, and is currently pursuing her Doctorate in composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Her breakthrough as a composer came as an 18-year-old in 2013 when she won the BBC Young Composer competition, the first of a series of awards and prizes including the Rosamond Prize, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Christopher Brooks Prize and the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize. This saw her working with leading ensembles and artists including members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Aurora Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, with works presented by leading UK arts organisations including the Cheltenham Festival, Southbank Centre and BBC Proms.
2016 brought The Yellow Wallpaper, Mason’s first operatic work, a compact 20-minute chamber opera for three singers and five instrumentalists, based on the pioneering short story of the same name by American novelist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). The drama is centred on a nameless young woman’s descent into psychosis as her mental health issues, namely post-natal depression, are left misunderstood. The opera was premiered successfully by the Helios Collective at English National Opera’s Lilian Baylis Studios and received its first North American staging in 2019 by 23Degree Theatre in Montreal.
Mason made her BBC Proms debut as a composer in 2017 with the chamber orchestra work River, commissioned by the BBC Proms and BBC Radio 4 Front Row to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Handel’s Water Music. In 2018 she composed Upon Weightless Wings for large chamber ensemble, commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society to mark the 21st birthday of Ensemble 10:10. The 12-minute work was premiered under the baton of Clark Rundell in 2018 and performed by The Sound Ensemble in Seattle in 2020.
Other recent works include the string trio Into the Abyss, I throw Roses, which was commissioned by the Park Lane Group and has received multiple performances in the UK, US and Canada since its premiere in 2019 at the Southbank Centre’s SoundState festival. My thoughts fly in at your window for wind and string octet was commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to mark its centenary year and premiered by members of the orchestra in 2020. The same year saw Mason named as the ‘face to watch’ for classical music in The Times 2020 Calendar of the Arts and in 2021 the newspaper selected her as one of five young stars featured at the BBC Proms, linked with the premiere of her orchestral work The Imagined Forest.
About Boosey & Hawkes:
Boosey & Hawkes, a Concord company, is the world’s leading publisher of contemporary classical music. Its blue chip catalogue of 20th-century masters includes Bartók, Bernstein, Britten, Copland, Prokofieff, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Strauss and Stravinsky alongside an eminent front list of composers that includes John Adams, Harrison Birtwistle, Unsuk Chin, Anna Clyne, Brett Dean, Detlev Glanert, Osvaldo Golijov, HK Gruber, Karl Jenkins, Elena Kats-Chernin, Magnus Lindberg, James MacMillan, Steve Reich, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Eric Whitacre.
> www.boosey.com
About Concord Music Publishing:
Concord Music Publishing is a global, full-service, independent music publisher offering bespoke creative support from its A&R, Synchronization and Marketing teams and diligent administration by its in-house Copyright, Licensing, Income Tracking and Royalty departments. Based in Nashville with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London and Berlin, Concord Music Publishing owns or administers more than 600,000 copyrighted musical works. Spanning nearly two centuries of song, through a vast array of genres and territories, Concord represents the world’s most celebrated songwriters, composers and lyricists.
> www.concord.com
For press enquiries, contact:
David Allenby
VP Publicity & Marketing, Boosey & Hawkes
[email protected]
Bronte Larsen-Disney
Publicity & Media Co-ordinator, Boosey & Hawkes
[email protected]
For programming enquiries, contact:
Emma Kerr
VP Promotion, Boosey & Hawkes
[email protected]
ENDS
> Further information on Work: The Yellow Wallpaper
Photo: Roscoe/Rutter Ltd
