Daniel Elms (born 1985 in

Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east ...

) is a British composer of contemporary classical and electroacoustic music.

Early life and education

Elms was born in Kingston upon Hull and began composing as a teenager while studying the guitar. He was awarded a scholarship by the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

to study under

Kenneth Hesketh Kenneth Hesketh (born 20 July 1968) is a British composer of contemporary classical music in numerous genres including dance, orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo. He has also composed music for wind and brass bands as well as seasonal music for ...

, Joseph Horovitz,

Peter Stark Peter Stark is a British conductor and teacher. He is currently Professor of Conducting at the Royal College of Music in London and Rehearsal Director of the European Union Youth Orchestra. Education and early career Stark studied violin and c ...

, and

Carlos Bonell Carlos Antonio Bonell (born 23 July 1949) is an English classical guitarist of Spanish origin. He has been described by ''Classical Guitar'' magazine as "one of the great communicators of the guitar world". Career Born in London, Bonell started ...

. His study was supported by the

Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. History The Arts an ...

, and the

Countess of Munster Musical Trust The Countess of Munster Musical Trust is a charity based in Godalming, Surrey, England, that provides scholarships, prizes and loans to support young musicians in the United Kingdom. History The trust was founded in 1958 by Hilary Wilson (9 March ...

. Elms is the recipient of the "Emerging Excellence" Award 2013 from the Musicians' Benevolent Fund.

Musical style

Elms has described his own work as "post genre": a musical style that is as likely to use principles of contemporary classical composition as it is to draw upon the instrumentation or aesthetics of electronica, punk, or any other genre. This prism-like perspective of influence and instrumentation is notable in Elms' debut album ''Islandia'', particularly the work ''Bethia'', composed for Hull City of Culture 2017, in which he uses an abstraction of traditional sea shanties, sung by a male choir, which is offset by the contrapuntal chimes of a

carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...

and a piano, the ambience of sustained chords played by a synthesiser, and, in the latter half of the work, a strident — sometimes dissonant — trumpet. All of this is accompanied by a projection of collaged and superimposed archival film, taken from

the British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

and assembled into a new form by videographer David Briggs. In Elms' music there is a focus on timbre and the time "in between notes"; he sacrifices melody and accompaniment in favour of texture and impressionism, which, with the assistance of found sounds — in a manner similar to

musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic, ...

— is often evocative of environments or landscapes. The influence of "found art" is evident not only in the instrumentation of Elms' work, but in the subjects upon which his work is based, and from which he derives the harmonic content and integrity of his music.

Career

Elms' debut album ''Islandia'' was released in 2019 on

New Amsterdam Records New Amsterdam Records is a record label in New York City that was formed in 2008 by Judd Greenstein, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and William Brittelle to promote classically trained musicians who fall between traditional genre boundaries. Often abbrev ...

. He mixed and produced the record, which was recorded at

Abbey Road Studios Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music c ...

. The album was written while Elms was in residence at the home of composer

Imogen Holst Imogen Clare Holst (; 12 April 1907 – 9 March 1984) was a British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist, and festival administrator. The only child of the composer Gustav Holst, she is particularly known for her education ...

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

has featured Elms' music on shows by Hannah Peel, Elizabeth Alker, and

Sara Mohr-Pietsch Sara Mohr-Pietsch (; born 1980) is a British music broadcaster who works principally for BBC Radio 3. Early life and education Mohr-Pietsch was born in London to a mother of Polish and a father of German descent. She sang in her school's choral ...

. His music has been performed at venues including the

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...

Kings Place Kings Place is a building in London’s Kings Cross area, providing music and visual arts venues combined with seven floors of office space. It has housed the editorial offices of ''The Guardian'' newspaper since December 2008 and is the for ...

Invisible Wind Factory Invisible Wind Factory is an events venue based in a former factory in Liverpool, UK. It opened in 2016 and has hosted a range of gigs and other events. Building The building is at 3 Regent Road, to the north of Liverpool city centre and nea ...

, and the Stoller Hall. In 2015 Elms was commissioned by the British Film Institute to create ''Bethia'' for Hull City of Culture 2017 as part of PRS Foundation's New Music Biennial. The work premiered at

Hull Minster Hull Minster is the Anglican minster and the parish church of Kingston upon Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The church was called Holy Trinity Church until 13 May 2017 when it became Hull Minster. History It is the largest pa ...

on 30 June 2017, with a second performance at the Royal Festival Hall on 7 July 2017; a recording of the work was released by NMC Records. Manchester Collective commissioned Elms in 2018 to create ''100 Demons'' for string quartet and tape. The work, influenced by

Hyakki Yagyō ''Hyakki Yagyō'' (, "Night Parade of One Hundred Demons"), also transliterated ''Hyakki Yakō'', is an idiom in Japanese folklore. Sometimes an orderly procession, other times a riot, it refers to a parade of thousands of supernatural creatures ...

and the political turmoil of 2016–18, showcases Elms' combination of subject, electroacoustic instrumentation, and found sound. The work was performed across two national UK tours in 2018. In 2019 the BBC Concert Orchestra, in partnership with BBC Radio 3's ''Unclassified Live'', commissioned a new orchestral work from Elms. The Royal Philharmonic Society commissioned Elms in 2020 to create a new work for dance, ''The Age of Spiritual Machines'', with choreographer Alexander Whitley. Elms recorded, produced and mixed the "distressingly brutal" debut album ''What is Imposed Must be Endured'' by doom metal band Blind Monarch. Elms wrote additional music for the 2017 TV series ''Taboo'' by

Ridley Scott Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is a British film director and producer. Directing, among others, science fiction films, his work is known for its atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. Scott has received many accolades thr ...

and

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

; the show and its lead composer,

Max Richter Max Richter (; ; born 22 March 1966) is a German-born British composer and pianist. He works within postminimalist and contemporary classical styles. Richter is classically trained, having graduated in composition from the University of Edinbur ...

, were nominated for an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

for Original Dramatic Score in 2017. Elms has also worked with

on the film ''

Never Look Away ''Never Look Away'' (german: Werk ohne Autor, lit=Work Without Author) is a 2018 German epic coming-of-age romantic drama film written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. It was nominated for a Golden Lion at the 75th Venice Inte ...

'', ''Promise at Dawn'', and the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

adaptation of Eleanor Ferrante's ''My Brilliant Friend''. In 2020 Elms was music editor on

series ''Industry'' with original music by DJ Nathan Micay. Elms composed music for ''Plaques and Tangles'' at Royal Court Theatre in 2015.

Musical works

* The Age of Spiritual Machines (2020) * 100 Demons (2018) * Soft Machines (2017) * Islandia (2017) * The Old Declarn (2017) * North Sea Quartet(2017)

Early life and education

Musical style

Career

Musical works

Discography

References

External links