Contemporary Music Research Cluster Seminar: week 7 Thinking of the performer, the composers' approach: Composing to a brief with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music
Event details
Join composers Alan Bullard, Kristina Arakelyan and Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) Partnerships Manager and composer James Welburn as they explore the world of composing to a brief with ABRSM. By placing the performer at the heart of the compositional process, writing music even within the strict parameters of a graded music exam can be creative, engaging and rewarding for composer, performer and examiner alike.
Meeting ID: 974 1147 1887
Passcode: 030134
About the speakers
Alan Bullard, Kristina Arakelyan and James Welburn
Alan Bullard is a UK composer whose music is performed all over the world and is published by Oxford University Press and ABRSM among others. He has been writing music all his life, and frequently undertakes commissions for choral societies, church choirs, orchestral societies and many other ensembles. He has also written much educational music, including the Joining the Dots sight-reading series, the Scale Explorer series (both ABRSM) and, jointly with his wife Janet, the Pianoworks series (OUP).
Kristina Arakelyan is one of the UK's most exciting young composers. Her notable awards include the BBC Young Composers' Competition and the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) composers' competition and her works have been heard on BBC Radio 3 on numerous occasions and in the most prestigious concert halls in England. Kristina is delighted to be working with the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain (NYCGB), BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra, ABRSM and Stainer and Bell this year. Kristina took part in ABRSM’s inaugural composer mentoring programme in 2021 and her piece Daydream was featured in ABRSM’s Piano 2023 and 2024 syllabus.
James Welburn is a composer, pianist, guitarist and music educator based in London. He composes primarily for solo piano and is published by Editions Musica Ferrum. His debut release, Musical Escapades, was praised for its ‘rhythmic swagger that would not be out of place if juxtaposed with Prokofiev's lighter children's pieces’ by Murray McLachlan in International Piano’s July/August 2020 edition. His latest album, Star of Wonder – a collection of contemporary Christmas carols – comes recommended by Pianist magazine, which featured his arrangement of Ding Dong Merrily on High in its Christmas 2021 edition. As Partnerships Manager at ABRSM, James manages the organisation’s partnership and sponsorship activities in the UK and around the world, and overseas ABRSM’s composer mentoring programme, which was launched in 2021 to support the next generation of composers from diverse backgrounds.