Iain Chambers is an English composer, producer and performer. Iain has composed and performed since the 1990s. He formed the duo Bow Mods with Philip Clayton Smith, releasing an album and 2 EPs on Drunken Records. He produced programmes at

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 ...

between 1999-2007, including

Andy Kershaw Andrew J. G. Kershaw (born 9 November 1959) is a broadcaster and disc jockey, predominantly on radio, and known for his interest in world music. Kershaw's shows feature a mix of country, blues, reggae, folk music, African music, spoken word pe ...

and

Late Junction ''Late Junction'' is a music programme broadcast weekly on Friday nights by BBC Radio 3. Billed as "Experimental music for adventurous listeners.", the programme has a wide musical scope. It is not uncommon to hear medieval ballads juxtaposed wit ...

. With Kershaw he made programmes in Algeria, Mali,

Corsica Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...

and Sardinia, winning a Gold award for best Specialist Music Programme at the

Radio Academy Awards The Radio Academy Awards, started in 1983, were the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. For most of their existence, they were run by ZAFER Associates, but in latter years were brought under the control of The Radio Academy ...

in 2003. In 2003, with Radio 3 colleagues Felix Carey and Philip Tagney, he co-founded

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, ...

collective

Langham Research Centre Langham Research Centre is a group devoted to authentic performances of classic electronic music, and the creation of new music from their instrumentarium of vintage analogue devices. Founded in August 2003, they comprise the composers / produce ...

. The trio sought to breathe new life into experiments with reel-to-reel tape, producing two editions of

Between The Ears Between is a preposition. It may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Between'' (Frankmusik album), a 2013 album by Frankmusik * "Between", a song by Jerry Cantrell from ''Boggy Depot'' * ''Between'' (TV series), a Canadian science fiction- ...

: Gateshead Multistorey Carpark, and guest+host=ghost written by and starring Peter Blegvad, and featuring

Nick Cave Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian singer, songwriter, poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor. Known for his baritone voice and for fronting the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Ca ...

. In 2005 the trio were joined by

Robert Worby Robert Worby is a London-based composer, sound artist, writer and broadcaster. In the late 1970s, he played guitar and tapes in a post-punk band called The Distributors. The band released several singles, recorded two Radio 1 sessions for John P ...

, and began to perform new realisations of work by

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

Alvin Lucier Alvin Augustus Lucier Jr. (May 14, 1931 – December 1, 2021) was an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University in Mi ...

, Christian Wolff and others, using their instrumentarium of obsolete analogue equipment, alongside their own new music made from the same sources. Iain won a second Radio Academy award for his 2011 radiophonic drama written by Peter Blegvad, Use It Or Lose It. Broadcast by

and starring Harriet Walter and

David Horovitch David Horovitch (born 11 August 1945) is an English actor, perhaps best known for playing the character of Inspector Slack in ''Miss Marple''. He stars in the '' Game of Thrones'' prequel series ''House of the Dragon'' as Grand Maester Mellos. ...

, the drama also received a

Prix Europa {{notability, Events, date=March 2021 PRIX EUROPA – The European Broadcasting Festival – is the Europe's largest annual tri-medial festival and competition. The event takes place in the third week of October in Berlin, Germany. PRIX E ...

Special Commendation, and was a finalist in the 2013 BBC Audio Drama Awards. In 2010, Iain began making music using location recordings as compositional material. His piece The Regent's Canal – featuring pitched-down bicycle bells – was a finalist in the 2012 Europe – A Sound Panorama competition. In 2013 he was commissioned by Musicity to make a site specific composition – Operahuset – to be permanently housed on the sloping roof of

Oslo Opera House The Oslo Opera House ( no, Operahuset) is the home of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the national opera theatre in Norway. The building is situated in the Bjørvika neighbourhood of central Oslo, at the head of the Oslofjord. It is ...

. Iain founded the media cooperative Open Audio in 2012 with Nina Perry and Vivienne Perry. The company produce multimedia content alongside dramas, documentaries and features for BBC Radio and international broadcasters. Since 2014 Iain has led the project Recomposed, creating live recompositions of concerts in time for the audience's exit from the first show. The project has received critical acclaim for performances at Cheltenham Jazz Festival and

Vossajazz Vossajazz or Vossa Jazz (established 19 December 1973) is an international jazz festival in Voss, Norway, which takes place annually during the week before Easter, and which also includes concerts throughout the year. The festival has been led by ...

In 2015 Iain staged the first concerts ever held in

Tower Bridge Tower Bridge is a Listed building#Grade I, Grade I listed combined Bascule bridge, bascule and Suspended-deck suspension bridge, suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones (architect), Horace Jones and e ...

's bascule chamber. The huge subterranean space housed 12 sold-out concerts featuring Iain's new work Bascule Chambers, deploying the sound of Tower Bridge lifting as compositional material, alongside trumpets and trombones playing the pitches sounded by the bridge. A recording of the concert was released by

Touch Music Touch (sometimes mistakenly written 'Touch Records' and sometimes written Touch Music, which is technically the publishing side of the company) is a British audio-visual organisation, operating the Touch label. Touch was founded in 1982 by Jon ...

. Iain continues to curate the Bascule Chamber Concerts, now an annual event. In 2017 Iain created a large outdoor radiophonic work, The House of Sound, for performance outside the

Guildhall, London Guildhall is a municipal building in the Moorgate area of the City of London, England. It is off Gresham and Basinghall streets, in the wards of Bassishaw and Cheap. The building has been used as a town hall for several hundred years, and is ...

, supported by City of London Corporation, Cheapside Business Alliance,

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The work was also commissioned for broadcast by Westdeutscher Rundfunk, and had an accompanying sonic trail of Mythophone speakers, created by Dan Fox and Dave Young. Iain composed a new version of the House of Sound for the reopening of Reading Abbey in 2018. In 2019 Iain launched the independent record label, Persistence of Sound, celebrating

, field recording and the interplay between these disciplines. The label's first releases included his radiophonic work, The Eccentric Press, commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne,a finalist in the EBU's Palma Ars Acustica awards. and its follow-up piece, Maudslay Engine, commissioned by Radio National in Australia. Iain's album Secrets of Orford Ness was released by Flaming Pines in 2020. Ivry-sur-Seine, Iain's Hörspiel for Westdeutscher Rundfunk exploring Paris's concrete architecture through sound, won the Prix Palma Ars Acustica in 2021.PALMA ARS ACUSTICA, https://www.ebu.ch/projects/radio/palma-ars-acustica

Selected compositions

References

External links

Langham Research Centre website

Iain Chambers on Soundcloud

"Take it to the bridge: making music out of a London landmark", The Guardian, 24 September, 2015

"LIVE REPORT: Tower Bridge Bascule Chamber Concert", The Quietus, 14 October, 2015

"New label Persistence Of Sound releases London Sound Survey’s Thames LP", The Wire, 21 March, 2019
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chambers, Iain English composers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Place of birth missing (living people)