Andrew Glover

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Andrew Glover is a composer born 1962 in Birmingham, UK. He studied in Nottingham and gained his Doctorate in 1994 from Keele University after studying with Dr George Nicholson.

1 Musical Style
2 A personal view, by John Lander
3 Selected Compositions
4 Sources
5 External links

Glover's importance as a composer lies in his originality of ideas used within a more conservative instrumental context. His music is informed by many musical styles that is melded into an original voice that speaks to many people not just musicians. His music has always been described by critics as 'emotional' (Libre, English Language Mexican Newspaper, 2003).

Glover is a British composer who has been influenced over the years by his interests in world music and rock. He played as a semi professional guitarist and jazz flutist for some time while a student to make a few pounds extra to his grant. His music has been performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins and Grant Llewellyn, Miekko Kanno, English Northern Philharmonic under Paul Daniel, The Latin American String Quartet, Alison Wells, Mexico State Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Ball, Linda Hirst, Gabriel Keen, Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra under Peter Eotvos, Asako Arai to name but a few. He has been placed in many competitions worldwide. His music is little heard in Britain but is played from Mexico to Russia and many places in between such as Nederlands, Israel etc. His music has been described by one foreign critic as '...like being seduced by Sophia Loren while being disembowelled by Attila the Hun' (Libre) another described it as being '...struck by a thousand bolts of lightning at once' (Leeds Echo).

He is not a prolific composer nowadays due to work constraints, but in the past he produced approximately three to four works a year. He has written in many genres from solo instruments to full Symphony Orchestra and his most well known works are 'Fractured Vistas' for Orchestra, a tour de force of energy and exuberance and 'The Fickle Virgin of Seventeen Summers' for String Quartet, a work of immense concentration and drive first premiered in Mexico in 1997. These works have shown a hard edge that approximates to the hard rock of his home city; gritty and terse but always approachable.

In 2000 he began working on his warm energetic lyrical concerto 'The Death of Angels: A Concerto for Violin and Orchestra', based on John Milton's Paradise Lost. This work alone brought more recognition when it was premiered and broadcast by the BBC in Feb 2003.

His music has been recorded often by the artists it has been commissioned by or written for and is available on CD from the composer only; his music is published by Jaguar Press and CDP. His music is accesible from The Birmingham Central Music Library in England and from the Gaudeamus Foundation in Amsterdam, Holland.

He has always been proud of being from Birmingham and has always returned to his native midlands, currently living near Birmingham, that have influenced his more gritty style of composition which is more apparent in his very Anglicised works such as "Hymns of Crow" and "Lovelight" for Soprano and Flute. The country around where he lives has always been an inspiration, even though not directly, his pastoral credentials are apparent in works such as "Wind Carvings" for wind quintet and the stunningly virtuosic "Hiraeth" for Violin and Piano. He is currently completing his gigantic Piano Concerto 'The Time of Moments' and has plans for a new Concerto for five woodwind and orchestra for the Mexico City Wind Quintet for premiere sometime in 2009/10. A small piece for open score and a chamber work for Turkish Baglama/Saz and western ensemble for 2007.

[edit] Musical Style

Glover's own knowledge and experience as a practicing performer in different genres underlies much of his compositions. A significant number of these have been flute compositions for the American/Mexican flutist Asako Arai. These have explored his very complex style which involves his experimental techniques through to the vivacious folk orientated works.

He is quite the 'free thinker' and has never followed fashions unlike many of his compatriots have, and although many have tried in the media to place an -ism on his music they have found it impossible.

Some of his works (e.g. 'White Flight') also express his social and political concerns as well as his sense of fun.

Much of Glover's early recognition came from works that dealt with the manipulation of pulse and time. His experiments dealt with how time and pulse can be used to create opposites and tensions. He said in an interview on BBC Radio in 2004 that his fascination in this area came from watching natures natural rhythms of life change and move at different rates of change. This informed the works in his PhD thesis and culminated in works such as "Fractured Vistas" and "The Fickle Virgin of Seventeen Summers".

This research work lead to his study of the polyrhythmic, micro-macro aleotory works of Ligeti and Lutoslawski. His own work is something of a development of these ideas into a more modern idiom, this is particularly evident in the slow movements of his Violin and Flute Concertos.

His individualistic use of tone rows has given him the means to write music that is predominantly linear in its construction and yet create dense textures and 'clouds' of sound that he uses as background for the melodies and textures derived from many folk/world musics.

[edit] A personal view, by John Lander

When I have spoken to Glover about his music in the past he has always been open and very helpful with much of the information on his work given straight from memory without reference to notes. He cites his first composition as a pathetic attempt at writing a flute piece when he was about thirteen.

"It didn't fire the imagination, all it did was raise its head and then died on its stumps."

It wasn't until he got to Nottingham and began studying art and music as a combined course that he started taking composition seriously. He has always had a love of art, particularly 20th century and photography. He is a keen and adept photographer in his own right. Poetry has also played a big role in his life and he has set many poems from the late 20th century poets to great avail. He was 21 when he graduated with a 2:1 (hons) and wanted to develop this growing interest in composition, but was uncertain how to go about this. He turned to the then head of composition at the RNCM, Anthony Gilbert.

He has always thanked the composer Anthony Gilbert for helping him find a direction, and also Michael Finnissy for giving him a push in the right direction when he needed it at the start. Anthony Gilbert put him in touch with his first real composition tutor, Keith Gifford, who took Glover back to the basics and gave him his new direction and opened the door on new ideas. This continued for two years until Glover couldn't afford to go anymore, due to being unemployed.

"I was out in the cold again, but this time with some idea of what I was doing".

His work finally got shortlisted on the Society for The Promotion of New Music lists and he began getting the odd performance which caused something of a stir at the time. It was the period when Macmillan and Turnage were breaking on the scene and the next generation was about to have their influence on the new music world. Along with his compatriots, Joe Cutler, Sam Hayden,Jonathan Powell, Luke Stoneham, Tom Ingoldsby, Michael Zev Gordon, Julian Anderson, Richard Causton et al, Glover made something of a mark in the 1993 50th anniversay of the SPNM concert series with his solo piano work '800th Lifetime". His microtonal work "The Stones Speak Czech" was then premiered at the Barbican Centre in 1994 which consolidated his reputation as an up and coming young British composer to watch.

Since then his rise has been slow and intermittent but always on the up, even when to hear a work of Glover's you would more than likely have to travel to Europe or Mexico than here on his home turf of Britain.

"I have lived in or near Birmingham all my life and yet I have still never had a work performed in my home city, not even the BCMG have ever looked at me, and they are supposed to be carrying the banner for new music in Birmingham."

The BBC have broadcast and supported him with large premieres and broadcasts, but generally his music is much neglected in Britain. In fact until 2005 he was very much out on a limb even as far as his work was concerned having to work in totally unrelated fields such as Kitchen Design, Wines (a great love of his) and Telemarketing. Now though he teaches at Stourbridge College in the West Midlands and also at UCE Birmingham Conservatoire. His music has developed and changed over the years, in a more directly approachable and uncluttered way, but in Britain he is still remembered for the 'Angry Young Man' attitude of his orchestral work 'Fractured Vistas' and for his no holds barred extreme modernism of his String Quartet "The Fickle Virgin of Seventeen Summers". His work has softened only slightly, as can be seen by the Violin Concerto "The Death of Angels" based on John Milton and by his love of world musics that inform his own sound, "Cretan Dragonfly" for Flute, Vibraphone and 12 Solo Strings, or his work for two guitars called "Cappadocia" influenced by Turkish mountain music, plus his new work "Reasons of Darkness, Excuses of Light" for Turkish Baglama and small mixed Ensemble, surely it would be worth hearing more here in Britain. There is still an uncompromising side to his work that is not accepted in Britain and is yet loved by people in many other countries, this is particularly evident in the outer movements of his new Piano Concerto. May be the idea of the Prodigal Sons return may happen yet for this very interesting and individual composer from the industrial heartlands of Britain.

When asked about his lack of performances in Britain Glover once retorted with,

" I have grown so used to being ignored in Britain, what do you expect from a country that is so into banalism and is purely fad driven. Fickle or what! Thank goodness for the rest of the world."

[edit] Selected Compositions

'The Stones Speak Czech' (1994)Soprano & Microtonal Ensemble.
'Fractured Vistas'(1995)Orchestra
'The Bloodied Moon' (1995) Soprano and Mixed Ensemble
'The Fickle Virgin of Seventeen Summers' (1996)String Quartet
'Lovelight' (1996)Soprano and Flute
'Seven Disparate Visions of Quetzalcoatal' (1997) Solo Flute
'Ashes: After The Fracture: A Symphony for Orchestra' (1997)
'Wind Carvings' (1998)Woodwind Quintet
'The Death of Angels: A Concerto for Violin and Orchestra' (2000)
'Hymns of Crow; A mini semi acted opera in six scenes (2001) Soprano and Piano Trio
'The End of the Circle' (2001)Piano
'Speaking in Tongues of Angels' (2002) Piano Trio
'Cretan Dragonfly' (2003)Flute, Vibraphone and 12 Solo Strings
'Echoes of Angels'(2003)Mixed Chamber Ensemble
'Thowring' (1997/2003)Harp
'Cretan Nights: A Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra' (2004)
'The Seventh Angel Sounded the Seventh Trumpet: A Concerto for Flute with Orchestra' (2004/5)
'Hiraeth'(2004)Violin and Piano
'White Flight'(2004)Mixed Ensemble
'Ozrica Opticali' (2005) Graphic Score for Mixed ensemble of trio to sextet
'The Time of Moments: A Concerto for Piano and orchestra' (2002-2006)
'Guitar Sonata' (2006)
'Byzantine Melody No.4' (2006) Descant Recorder and Piano
'Reasons of Darkness, Excuses of Light' (2007) Baglama and Mixed Ensemble

[edit] Sources

Lander,J (2006). "Glover, An Unheard Original", New Music Magazine, May 2006.UK.
Green,D (2003). " An Unusual Man Speaks of His Music", Village Magazine, June 2003.USA.
Gaudeamus Foundation, Amsterdam Nederlands. [1]
Article in Libre, "New Music Hits the Mark" Mexican Newspaper 1997.
Article in Libre, "Meet the New Voices Being Heard this Week" Mexican Newspaper 2003.
Program notes from "The 23rd 'Manuel Enriques' Festival of New Music", Mexico, 2001.
Program notes from "The 25th 'Manuel Enriques' Festival of New Music", Mexico, 2003.
Article in Leeds "Echo", 1997.
Glover,A (1994). "Andrew Glover: Composition by Research".(PhD Thesis), Keele University 1994.
Birmingham Central Music Library, Birmingham (Scores).[2]