Gwyn Pritchard Recordings
Gwyn Pritchard was born in Yorkshire in 1948. He entered the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in 1966, to study ‘cello and composition. Initially he worked as a ‘cellist, but in the late 1970s performances of his music at London’s South Bank and the Warsaw Autumn Festival brought his work to the attention of a wider public, and he decided to commit himself exclusively to composition.
During the 1980s he developed a fruitful relationship with a number of Polish musicians and festivals, culminating in being a Featured Composer at the 1989 International New Music Week alongside
Lutosławski, who was often supportive of his work. Since then much of his compositional activity has been based outside his native UK, his music being performed around the world, with particularly
strong connections to Switzerland, Italy and especially Germany, where he has been the recipient of many commissions and performances. In addition to several European countries, his music has been performed in America, Canada, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.
Compositions include works for orchestra, ensembles, instrumental solos, vocal works and pieces employing electronics. Recent significant commissions include Forest for the Jena Philharmonic
Orchestra, quintets Realms Apart, performed in several German cities by ensembles Crush, and Quintet for LUX:NM, String Quartet no.2 for a portrait concert by the Neo Quartet of Gdansk, Linear Magic for Ensemble Via Nova of Weimar, Calling for pianist Asia Ahmetjanova for three portrait concerts in Zürich, Basel and Chur by Ensemble ö!, and most recently Zephyrus for flautist Carin Levine.
Other commissioners and performers have included: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, musikFabrik, Orkest ‘de ereprijs’, Exaudi, Gemini, Uroboros Ensemble, Sofia Soloists, Ensemble Phoenix, Basel Soloists, oenm (Salzburg, two portrait concerts), Ex Novo Ensemble (Venice), FLAME (Florence), Black Pencil (Amsterdam), Ensemble Mosaik (Berlin), Ensemble Eclat (S Korea); and some of the numerous soloists include Roberto Fabbriciani, Nicolas Hodges, Susanne Kessel, Sarah Leonard, Ernesto Molinari, Darragh Morgen, Ian Pace, Peter Veale, Roman Yusipey, and many of Pritchard’s colleagues in Uroboros Ensemble, which he founded in 1982.
Festival performances have included Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield (HCMF), Wien Modern, ISCM World Music Days, Daegu (S Korea), Weimarer Frühjahrstage, Zepernicker Randspiele (Berlin),
Intersonanzen (Potsdam), Borealis (Bergen), Tanglewood (USA), Neo Arte (Gdansk) and many more.Several pieces have been broadcast on a variety of national networks.
