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Hugh Collins Rice

Member

Location: Beaconsfield
Composer/Lyricist: Composer
Genre: Concert
Email: GBmuswill@aol.com
Representation: Alfred Lengnick & Co
27 Grove Road
Beaconsfield
01494 681216

Biography

Hugh Collins Rice has won significant prizes for his compositions, which combine lyricism with a technique influenced by medieval and renaissance procedures. His music is well suited to mixed programming and often involves abstract references to musics of the past.

Hugh Collins Rice was born in Oxford in 1962. Much of his early musical experience was gained in brass bands, including five years playing with the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain. He studied music at the universities of Oxford and Sussex, has been teaching undergraduates at Oxford for a number of years and is currently college lecturer in music at Hertford College, Oxford.

His music has been performed at many venues across the British Isles and in Europe, including the Royal Festival Hall, the Concertgebouw and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Performers have included the Hilliard Ensemble, the Britten Sinfonia, Jane Manning, the Swingle Singers, the Coull Quartet and the Holywell Ensemble. Several works have been broadcast on Radio 3 and in Europe.

Vocal works have set a wide variety of texts from medieval graffiti to St Mark's Gospel and the poems of Geoffrey Hill, Christina Rossetti and Thomas Wyatt. Instrumental music includes the prize winning orchestral pieces Before the End (1989 PA Composition Award) and Robin's Lament (Composers' Guild/MCPS Prize, 1995); the string quartet, I Fiori, was written in association with the Walton Trust and dedicated to Lady Walton after the early stages of its composition were conceived in the spectacular gardens of La Mortella, Walton's home on the island. Writing for more unusual ensembles has been a regular feature of his output, recent examples include Earth and Moon written for the tuba quartet Tubalate, and Sequentiae Hildegargenses for the medieval ensemble Mediva. He is currently working on a music theatre project in collaboration with Mediva.

Important Works Performances
  1. Before the End (1989) winner, 1989 PA Composition Award orchestra [0.2.ca.2(1st+Eb).bcl.2(2nd+cbn) - 4.0.0.0 - str] 16mins. f.p. YMSO (J. Blair), Royal Festival Hall, London (1990)
  2. Ashwell Fragments (1994) 4 men's voices [ATTB] 10mins text medieval graffiti etc. f.p. the Hilliard Ensemble, Nuremberg Orgelwoche (1997) and broadcast Bavarian Radio
  3. Robin's Lament (1994) chamber orchestra [0.1.1.1 - 1.0.0.0 - str] 12mins Winner, Composers' Guild of Great Britain/MCPS Composition Prize (1995)
  4. In the Grave, Whither thou Goest (1995) soprano & ensemble [cl. vib. vln. vla. vc.] 6mins text Christina Rossetti f.p. Jane Manning and Jane's Minstrels (R. Montgomery), Reading (1995) and broadcast Radio 3 published - Lengnick & Co
  5. I Fiori (1996) string quartet - 16mins f.p. Coull Quartet, Stationers Hall, London (1997) published - Lengnick & Co
  6. The Pentecost Castle (1997) tenor & piano - 16mins text Geoffrey Hill f.p. Neil Mackenzie and Andrew Leach, Oxford (2002)
  7. And They Went to a Place (1999) 8 voices [SSAATTBB] 8mins Commissioned by the Swingle Singers text St Mark's Gospel/Latin antiphons f.p.the Swingle Singers, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam (2000)
  8. Earth And Moon, sacred geometry for tubas (1999) tuba quartet [2euph. 2tba.] 6mins f.p. Tubalate, Bangor Contemporary Music Festival (2003) cd recording, Tubalate (Horizon TCD 4)
  9. Sequentiae Hildegardenses (2002-05) - 15mins A sequence of four pieces for medieval ensemble designed to be performed with the music of Hildegard of Bingen. f.p. Mediva, St Bartholomew the Great, London (2002)
  10. Variations en Rondeau, (Puis quen oubli de vous dous amis) (2003) piano ? 7 mins f.p. Brent Waterhouse, Oxford (2005), Radio 3 broadcast (Simon Mawhinney) from Sligo New Music Festival forthcoming.
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