James Waide
James Waide is a composer of contemporary art music in the ‘classical tradition’. His work is mostly in the field of traditionally notated concert music, but he also has experience as a composer and performer of graphic and text scores. His first musical passion as a child was for folk music, and this interest often finds its way into his compositions. Born in Northampton in 1993, he studied music at the University of Hull, before completing a Masters’ Degree in Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music under the tutelage of David Horne, Larry Goves and Stephen Daverson. He lives and works in Manchester, and he is also a part-time postgraduate researcher with funding from the RNCM, examining intersections between composition and Lacanian psychoanalysis.
He has composed pieces which have been performed, workshopped and/or recorded by David Horne, the Hallé, Weston Olencki, Anne-Marie O’Farrell and Timo Kinnunen, to name just a few. He has also written for Hive Sinfonia, the orchestra he co-founded with his regular collaborator, conductor and cellist Benjamin Draper.
Anne-Marie O’Farrell
Leading harpist of her generation, Dr Anne-Marie O’Farrell from Dublin performs all over the world, and is frequently invited to perform and teach at international conferences and festivals, including several World Harp Congresses. She is particularly recognized for her expansion of repertoire, and for her innovations on lever harp, as a result of which the world’s leading harpmakers Salvi Harps redesigned their lever harps to become concert instruments. She has given multiple premieres of many works for pedal and lever harp, some commissioned especially for her.
Numerous orchestral and ensemble performances include those with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland with whom she was concerto soloist for her lever harp concerto, In Light Anew. Her groundbreaking developments in composition, arrangement and transcription for the harp are documented in her substantial output of publications, including critical editions of works by J.S. Bach. A prolific recording artist, she has released several solo CDs, including Just So Bach, Harping Bach to Carolan, The Jig’s Up, My Lagan Love and Embrace. New Directions for Irish Harp; Double Strung and Duopoly with Cormac De Barra; and Harp to Harp with harmonica player Brendan Power.
In recent years she has been commissioned to compose several large-scale works featuring the harp, including a lever harp concerto commissioned by RTÉ Lyric FM, a five-movement work for harp orchestra commissioned by Harp Ireland, and several chamber pedal harp pieces. Her works have been performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestral of Wales, the BBC Singers, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and numerous other international performers.
As Head of Harp at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, she runs a thriving harp department, and also teaches on their junior conservatoire programme. She is frequently invited as examiner and jury member in conservatoires and international competitions. Currently she is also training to become a teacher of the Alexander Technique (ITM). http://www.annemarieofarrell.com
Timo Kinnunen
Having won the World Championship for Accordion at the age of only sixteen, Finnish accordionist Timo Kinnunen started his international career.
He works continuously as an accordion soloist and as a chamber musician worldwide with over 50 concerts a year, performing contemporary, classical, and improvised music. Kinnunen’s artist image and his virtuosity on the accordion have inspired composers to create very interesting works for this instrument. Besides the concert activity, Kinnunen has an international reputation for his innovative cultural and pedagogical projects.
Timo Kinnunen has premiered more than one hundred solo and chamber music works dedicated to him and has cooperated with, for instance, composers Vinko Globokar, John Cage, Astor Piazzolla, Alvin Curranand Jukka Tiensuu. He has recently premiered works of such well-known composers as Hans-Joachim Hespos, Jan Sandström, Miklós Maros, Jouni Kaipainen, Dimitris Andrikopoulos, Daping Qin, Uljas Pulkkis, Perttu Haapanen, and Christina Athinodorou.
Over past seasons he has collaborated with various distinguished artists, orchestras, choirs, and ensembles including singers Claron McFadden, Charlotte Riedijk, Phil Minton, Ute Wassermann, Helena Juntunen, and the Ecio-European Contemporary Improvisation Orchestra, the UMO Jazz Orchestra, the Oulu Symphony orchestra, the Karelia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mondriaan quartet, The Screaming Men, the Tempera Quartet, cimbalomist Enikö Ginzery, percussionists Sabu Toyotzumi, Maurice de Martin, Michael Gould, sho-player Naomi Sato, violinist Heleen Hulst, cellist Jörg Brinkmann, contrabasists Chris Dahlgren and Matthias Bauer, pianists Iiro Rantala and Yoko Arai, guitarists John Russell and Daniel Göritz, Erik Westberg´s vocal ensemble, dancer-choreographers Nadja Raszewski and Aki Suzuki, conductors Marius Stravinsky, Jan Söderblom and Taco Kooistra, Terri Cat´s Jungle Band, and the Camus Nova Ensemble.
After completing his studies in the Sibelius Academy, Timo Kinnunen continued his studies with Mogens Ellegaard at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen and with Hugo North in the University of Music Trossingen, Germany and in Jyväskylä University. Timo Kinnunen also teaches classical accordion, improvisation, and new chamber music at the Oulu Conservatory and at the Oulu University of Applied Sciences. His many former accordion students are well-known artists in the international music scene. Timo Kinnunen also teaches in universities and courses throughout Europe.
Kinnunen has enriched european cultural life through many projects. He was 22 years old when he founded with composer Jukka Tiensuu the international festival and summer academy A Time of Music in his native town Viitasaari. The festival is one of the world’s foremost festivals of new music. In the nineties he created and led an international festival named OULULUO, which concentrated on a dialog between art and technology.
Currently, Timo Kinnunen works also as an artistic director for Poison City Festival, Cultura Creativa and the International PanAccordion composition contest.
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