Tim Parkinson (born 7 July 1973) is a British
experimental composer,
pianist
A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...
and curator. His music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles including
Apartment House, the
Basel Sinfonietta
The Basel Sinfonietta is a Swiss orchestra, based in Basel.
History
The Basel Sinfonietta was founded in 1980, as a self-governing ensemble, by a group of young musicians with a focus on contemporary classical music. The orchestra has presented ...
and the
London Sinfonietta
The London Sinfonietta is an English contemporary chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London.
The ensemble has headquarters at Kings Place and is Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. Since its inaugural concert in 1968—givi ...
, and soloists including
Anton Lukoszevieze and
Rhodri Davies.
It has been broadcast on
BBC Radio 3,
Resonance FM
Resonance 104.4 FM is a London based non-profit community radio station specialising in the arts run by the London Musicians' Collective (LMC). The station is staffed by four permanent staff members, including programme controller Ed Baxter and ...
,
WDR3
WD repeat-containing protein 3 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''WDR3'' gene.
This gene encodes a nuclear protein containing 10 WD repeats. WD repeats are approximately 30- to 40-amino acid domains containing several conserved resi ...
(Germany), and
Radio SRF 2 Kultur
Radio SRF 2 Kultur is one of six radio channels operated by Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF), the German-language division of the Swiss public-broadcasting organisation SRG SSR. First started in 1956 (at the same time as the introduction of FM ...
(Switzerland). He is co-curator (alongside composer
John Lely) of the concert series Music We'd Like to Hear, which has run since 2005,
having previously organised concerts at the
British Music Information Centre in London from 1997 onwards.
Education
Parkinson attended
Bedford School before studying at
Worcester College, Oxford and privately in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
with
Kevin Volans
Kevin Volans (born 26 July 1949) is a South African born Irish composer and pianist. He studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel in Cologne in the 1970s and later became associated with the ''Neue Einfacheit'' (New Simplicity) mov ...
, and participating in the
Ostrava Days Ostrava Days is a three-week-long exposition of contemporary classical music that takes place biennially in the city of Ostrava, The Czech Republic. The last season (2013) ran from August 12 to August 31, 2013. The event is considered to be one of ...
2001. In 2011 he was visiting Professor of Composition at the
Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts
The Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts ( cs, Janáčkova akademie múzických umění v Brně; abbreviation in Czech: JAMU) is a public university with an artistic focus in Brno, Czech Republic. It was established in 1947 and consi ...
in
Brno and has taught at
Ashmole Academy. In 2018 he was appointed a creative fellow at the Samuel Beckett Research Centre at the
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...
.
Style and career
His music has also been described as consisting of "melodious, somewhat Sixties sounds", inspired by an older generation of British experimental composers, such as
Michael Parsons. His music exhibits a
collage approach, often juxtaposing the sounds of
found objects, various kinds of musical material, or snippets of speech. Parkinson himself has described his compositional methods as follows:
What I want beforehand for myself is a large and unforeseen diversity of pitches and intervals – randomness, patterns, shapes – and of course there are countless ways to generate pitches… I’m quite inclusive about what pitches or intervals
Interval may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers
** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to arbitrary partially ordered sets
* A statistical level of measurement
* Interval e ...
are presented – I like consonance and dissonance – so sometimes a sequence of notes might be reminiscent of other music, and of course it might not be reminiscent of anything to me, but it might to others… Often I have used the page as a structural unit, like a movement or a panel, and allowed the players to choose their own order of pages for a performance.
Parkinson has also written music for
installation art
Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...
projects, such as ''sixty eight sounds for Welborne'' (2005), ''untitled installation (for Sound 323)'' (2003), for a London record shop, and ''ten brass'' for St. George's Gardens, Bloomsbury, commissioned by the
London Borough of Camden
The London Borough of Camden () is a London borough in Inner London. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the area of the former boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and ...
.
Much of Parkinson's music has utilitarian titles, such as ''orchestra piece'' (2012) or is untitled, such as ''untitled violin and piano'' (2000) and ''untitled (winter 2002)'' and his official website has the
domain name
A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...
www.untitledwebsite.com.
Since 2003, he has been one half of a duo, Parkinson Saunders, with composer
James Saunders, performing mostly
indeterminate music Indeterminacy is a composing approach in which some aspects of a musical work are left open to chance or to the interpreter's free choice. John Cage, a pioneer of indeterminacy, defined it as "the ability of a piece to be performed in substantially ...
, using "any sound-producing means" (objects not usually considered musical instruments, such as cardboard boxes, paper cups or wind-up toys), seated at two tables "like newsreaders".
Parkinson also performs as solo pianist and occasionally plays (as pianist) with ensembles Apartment House, and
Plus-Minus, at venues that have included
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
, the
Barbican Centre, and the
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (also known by the acronym HCMF, stylised since 2006 as the lowercase hcmf//) is a new music festival held annually in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. Since its foundation in 1978, it has feature ...
.
Recordings
Recordings of Parkinson's music have been released on labels including
Edition Wandelweiser
The Wandelweiser Group is a collective for composers and performers of contemporary classical music. Inspired by the work of John Cage, the Wandelweiser Group writes experimental music, which is typically of a very quiet nature and often incor ...
,
Another Timbre, Metier and Lorelt.
His album ''Pleasure Island'' was released by the label Slip Imprint in May 2019. This is Parkinson's first work explicitly conceived as an album and is titled after the 'Paese dei balocchi' (
Land of Toys
The Land of Toys ( it, Paese dei balocchi) is a fictional location in the Italian novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) that is disguised as a haven of freedom and anarchy for boys and occasionally girls, but is eventually discovered to be f ...
) in Carlo Collodi's ''
The Adventures of Pinocchio
''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' ( ; it, Le avventure di Pinocchio ; commonly shortened to ''Pinocchio'') is a children's fantasy novel by Italian author Carlo Collodi. It is about the mischievous adventures of an animated marionette named Pi ...
'' (1883), translated in the
1940 Disney film adaptation as 'Pleasure Island'.
Parkinson's second solo album ''Here Comes A Monster'' was released in May 2020 on
Cafe Oto
Cafe Oto is a venue for free jazz, experimental and free improvisation performances located in the Dalston district of London, United Kingdom.
Founded in 2008 Cafe Oto (''sound'' or ''noise'' in Japanese) is located in the heart of Dalston and p ...
's Takuroku imprint, founded to distribute music made during the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. It features guest vocals by a wide range of artists and musicians, including
John Lely,
Juliet Fraser,
Angharad Davies
Angharad Davies is a Welsh violinist and composer, known for her work in the field of free improvisation, her use of prepared violin (using techniques similar to the prepared piano), her extensive discography and collaborative work with other musi ...
,
Dominic Lash,
Laurence Crane,
Mira Benjamin,
Steve Beresford
Steve Beresford (born 6 March 1950) is a British musician who graduated from the University of York He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, electronics, trumpet, euphonium, bass guitar and a wide variety of toy instruments, suc ...
,
Rhodri Davies,
James Saunders,
JG Thirlwell
James George Thirlwell (born 29 January 1960), also known as Clint Ruin, Frank Want, and Foetus, among other names, is an Australian musician, composer, and record producer. He is known for juxtaposing a variety of different musical styles.
...
, and
Richard Dawson
Richard Dawson (born Colin Lionel Emm; 20 November 1932 – 2 June 2012) was a British-born American actor, comedian, game-show host and panelist in the United States. Dawson was well known for playing Corporal Peter Newkirk in ''Hogan's Heroe ...
.
Time With People
Parkinson's opera, ''Time With People'' (2012–13) has been widely staged by various international companies, and received performances in London, Huddersfield, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oberlin, Ohio, New York (by Object Collection) and Brussels. A French translation has been staged in
La Chaux-de-Fonds
La Chaux-de-Fonds () is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometers south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg, it is the fourth largest city l ...
and a German language version is in preparation for 2019.
The opera is largely performed without typical musical instruments, on a stage strewn with rubbish, which is also used as a sound source, alongside the sounds of walking, speech, clapping, humming, and musical recordings. It has been described by reviewers as "robotic incantations...
ndscenes of meaningless actions enacted amongst piles of garbage", "
theatre of the absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd (french: théâtre de l'absurde ) is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style o ...
in eight scenes" and "what opera might be like if you removed music and orchestra".
References
External links
* – official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parkinson, Tim
Living people
1973 births
British male pianists
Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford
21st-century British composers
21st-century British male musicians