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Members' Directory Member Profile
Members' Directory Member Profile 
Stephen Montague
Professional
| Location: | London |
| Composer/Lyricist: | Composer |
| Genre: | Concert |
| Email: | SRmontague@aol.com |
| Representation: |
21 Stanley Crescent Notting Hill London 020 7229 1673 |
Biography
Stephen Montague (b. Syracuse, New York, 1943), Anglo/American composer, grew up in West Virginia and Florida. He studied piano, conducting and composition at Florida State University, received a doctorate from Ohio State University (1972) and won a Fulbright Fellowship to work in Warsaw, Poland, 1972-74. From Poland he came to England first as a musician with Strider Dance Co. (Richard Alston and co.), but since 1975 has worked as a freelance composer based in London but touring world-wide.
His music has been widely performed, featuring in numerous international festivals including the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall and V & A Museum, the Warsaw Autumn Festival, Paris Festival d'automne, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Kennedy Center (Washington DC). Major commissions have included a piano concerto for the BBC Proms, the Hilliard Ensemble, pianist Stephen Kovacevich, percussionist Evelyn Glennie, the International Computer Music Association, and a 35 minute work for narrator and orchestra for the BT Celebration Series premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre, London, with a further 14 performances by other leading British orchestras around the country.
Although a long-term UK resident, his compositional influences are transatlantic. He comments: "I have lived in Britain since 1974 but my musical heroes remain American: I admire Charles Ives's unapologetic juxtaposition of vernacular music and the avant-garde,
Henry Cowell's irreverent use of fist and arm clusters, the propulsive energy of minimalism and John Cage's radical dictum the 'all sound is music'".
As a "virtuoso pianist" [New York Times] he has recorded for all the major European radio networks, performed at Carnegie Hall, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Paris Centre Pompidou. In 1985 he formed a duo with the pianist Philip Mead - Montague/Mead Piano Plus - which tours internationally. He also collaborates with the sculptor Maurice Agis, providing multi-channel electroacoustic sound environments for his giant inflatable sculptures, Dreamspace and Colourspace.
Stephen Montague was a founder of Sonic Arts Network (UK), Chair of the Society for the Promotion of New Music, 1993-97 and Artistic Director, 1998-99. He was Associate Composer with the Orchestra of St John's, Smith Square (London), 1995-97, and Featured Composer for the City of Oxford, 1997-98. He was a guest professor at the University of Texas- Austin, 1992, 1995, 2000, University of Auckland, NZ, 1997and Composer in Residence at Trinity College of Music, London, 2003.
Compact discs of his works are on ASV (UK), NMC (UK), Continuum (NZ), Centaur (USA), Point Records (USA) and others. In addition to music he is an active bicyclist and tennis player (the former Florida JC Tennis Champion).
"In an age when most American composers seem happy to play safe, Stephen Montague's extrovert, quirkily individual, energetic music recalls older, more adventurous times. There are echoes of the pioneering Ives, or of Copland's still fresh folk-symphonic fusions, but he's never derivative. 'Snakebite' is a frantic, exhilarating dance, full of pulsating rhythms and fragments of cowboy songs, starting with a wonderfully graphic illustration of the poisonous
bite itself... This CD deserves to sell!" - Stephen Johnson, The Independent
See United Music Publishers' website for further details and listings:
www.ump.co.uk
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