Martin Green (born 28 November 1980 in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

) is an English musician and composer. He is the accordionist in the folk trio

Lau Lau or LAU may refer to: People * Lau (surname) * Liu (劉/刘), a common Chinese family name transliterated Lau in Cantonese and Hokkien * Lau clan, one of the Saraswat Brahmin clans of Punjab * LAU (musician): Laura Fares Places * Lebane ...

, who won a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists.

Career

His career as a composer began in 2003 with the goliath environmental theatre production of 'Albatross' based on

Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of An ...

's journey, which was the centrepiece of the

Glastonbury Festival Glastonbury Festival (formally Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place in Pilton, Somerset, England. In addition to contemp ...

's Theatre Field in 2004. Alongside Aidan O'Rourke and

Kris Drever Kris Drever (born 31 October 1978) is a Scottish contemporary folk musician and songwriter who came to prominence in 2006 with the release of his debut solo album, ''Black Water''. Drever is the vocalist and guitarist of the folk trio Lau with ...

, Green formed Lau in 2005. The folk trio have won awards including Best Group at the

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British ra ...

on four occasions. Green has been developing his solo career as a composer and has received a string of commissions, most significantly his theatrical song cycle Crows’ Bones for

Opera North Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and ...

in 2012/13. In 2014 he won a

Paul Hamlyn Foundation Paul Hamlyn Foundation is a registered charity, and a company limited by guarantee which has been established in its current form since 2004, succeeding an earlier incarnation that was founded in 1987, which itself formalised established philanthr ...

Award for Artists in recognition of his work as a composer. In 2015 Green was commissioned to write music and create a new noise device by the

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...

. The new piece of music, Seiche, was performed on the Kronos Quartet's UK tour in 2016. Green began work on Flit in 2016, a new production created in collaboration with BAFTA-winning animators Will Anderson and

Ainslie Henderson Ainslie Thomas Henderson (born 28 January 1979, Edinburgh, Scotland) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and animator. He became known to the public via his appearance on the BBC's television programme, ''Fame Academy'', and his subsequent UK top 5 ...

of whiterobot. Flit features musicians

Adrian Utley Adrian Francis Utley (born 27 April 1957) is an English musician and producer, and a member of the band Portishead.Jurek, ThomAdrian Utley Biography, Allmusic. Retrieved 31 December 2016 Career Born in Northampton,Mejia, Paula (2015)In Search ...

Dominic Aitchison Dominic Aitchison (born 11 October 1976) is a Scottish bassist and songwriter. He is best known as the bassist and founding member of post-rock band Mogwai. Aside from Mogwai, he also played bass guitar in Crippled Black Phoenix and Stage Blood ...

, Becky Unthank (of

The Unthanks The Unthanks (until 2009 called Rachel Unthank and the Winterset) are an English folk group known for their eclectic approach in combining traditional English folk, particularly Northumbrian folk music, with other musical genres."They may call ...

) and Adam Holmes and premieres at the

Edinburgh International Festival The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music (especially classical music) and the performing arts are i ...

2016. Martin Green has also worked as a session musician for Linda Thompson and

Eliza Carthy Eliza Amy Forbes Carthy, MBE (born 23 August 1975) is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing the fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson. Life and care ...

among others. As part of Lau he has performed with

Jack Bruce John Symon Asher Bruce (14 May 1943 – 25 October 2014) was a Scottish bassist, singer-songwriter, musician and composer. He gained popularity as the primary lead vocalist and ‍bassist ‍of British rock band Cream. After the group disbande ...

Cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

Personal life

Green's ancestors were Jewish refugees who fled

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in the 1930s. His great-grandfather ended up in a Jewish

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

, then a few years later his grandmother left for London with her mother. Green grew up in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

. His partner is musician

Inge Thomson Inge Thomson (born 23 October 1974) is a Scottish singer and multi-instrumentalist. Born in Fair Isle, Shetland, Scotland, she is a founding member of Harem Scarem and plays accordion and percussion in Karine Polwart's band. She has played with g ...

; the family lives in

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

References

English accordionists English folk musicians Lau (band) members Living people 1980 births Musicians from Norwich Musicians from Norfolk {{UK-musician-stub