Role

:

Composer

Birth

:

1953

Genre

:

Chamber

 

Chris Dench is a contemporary classical music composer who was born on April 13, 1953, in Sydney, Australia. He grew up in a family of musicians, with his father being a jazz pianist and his mother a classical pianist. Dench started playing the piano at a young age and later learned to play the clarinet and saxophone. He attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he studied composition with Peter Sculthorpe and Ross Edwards. After completing his studies, Dench moved to London in 1976, where he continued his composition studies at the Royal College of Music with John Lambert and Richard Rodney Bennett. He also studied with Brian Ferneyhough at the Freiburg Hochschule für Musik in Germany. Dench's early works were influenced by the European avant-garde, particularly the music of Ferneyhough and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His music is characterized by complex rhythms, intricate textures, and a focus on timbre and sound color. He has also been influenced by the music of the Australian Aboriginal people, which he has incorporated into some of his works. One of Dench's early works, "Ariadne's Thread," was premiered at the 1982 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and received critical acclaim. The piece is scored for large ensemble and features intricate rhythms and complex textures. It was later recorded by the London Sinfonietta and released on the NMC label. In the 1990s, Dench's music became more focused on the exploration of sound and timbre. He began to incorporate extended techniques into his compositions, such as multiphonics and microtones. His works from this period include "Corpus," a piece for solo cello that explores the full range of the instrument's timbral possibilities, and "Fury," a work for large ensemble that features a wide range of extended techniques. Dench's music has been performed by many leading ensembles and orchestras, including the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He has also been commissioned by numerous festivals and organizations, including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival, and the BBC Proms. In addition to his work as a composer, Dench has also been active as a teacher and musicologist. He has taught composition at the University of York and the Royal Northern College of Music, and has written extensively on contemporary music. His book "The Music of Harrison Birtwistle" is considered a seminal work on the composer's music. Dench has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including the Paul Lowin Prize for Orchestral Composition in 2006 and the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award in 2010. He was also elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2012. Overall, Chris Dench is a highly respected and influential composer in the contemporary classical music world. His music is characterized by its complexity and focus on sound and timbre, and he has been a major figure in the exploration of extended techniques in classical music. His works have been performed and recorded by many leading ensembles and orchestras, and he has also made significant contributions to the field of musicology through his writing and teaching.

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