David Sawer (born September 14, 1961) is a British composer of opera and choral, orchestral and chamber music.
Contents |
Sawer was born in Stockport, England. He studied music at the University of York where he began composing for contemporary music-theatre pieces. He continued his studies with Mauricio Kagel in Cologne. Even from this point his career, Sawer's music tends to define each piece within theatrical terms. Indeed, Sawer has described himself as a "theatre person who writes music". His works often reference the visual arts, and in particular surrealist imagery. For example, his piano piece, The Melancholy of Departure was inspired by the shadowy and irrational perspectives of a De Chirico painting.
In 1992 Sawer was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. His compositional career was supported by further awards and fellowships, including a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award in 1993, and a residence with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 1996. He currently teaches composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London.
Sawer has received numerous commissions that have resulted in impressive works for the concert hall, dance, film, theatre and radio. His 50-minute radio composition Swansong (1989), a collage of orchestral, choral and electronic sounds, conjuring the musical utopia envisioned by the dying Berlioz, was the BBC's entry for the Prix Italia and subsequently won a Sony Award.
If Sawer's early work reflected a variety of influences – from Igor Stravinsky to György Ligeti and Luciano Berio – these have been shed, gradually, as he matured. Certain characteristics remain from his early music: for instance the blurring of background and foreground in his first orchestral work, Trompe l'oeil (1982; since withdrawn), was later put to good use in Byrnan Wood, commissioned for the 1992 Proms.
Future works include Flesh and Blood, a dramatic scene for two voices and orchestra, to be premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov, with soloists Christine Rice and Marcus Farnsworth, Wonder, for SATB choir, to be included in the Choirbook for the Queen, a concert suite of Rumpelstiltskin , to be premiered by BCMG, conducted by George Benjamin, and The Lighthouse Keepers, a radio opera, for the 2013 Cheltenham Festival.