News Release Embargoed until 10am on Friday 26 April 2013 sound Festival / Red Note commission set for first ever UK New Music Biennial • Stephen Montague to create new children’s work • Zinnie Harris to create the text from stories sent in by children from across the Commonwealth • To be presented as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games celebration • Sound also a partner in Teta-a-Tete’s unique skate-boarding choral project The partnership between sound, Scotland’s leading New Music festival, Woodend Barn and the acclaimed Red Note Ensemble continues in a new commission from composer Stephen Montague, which is to be part of the UK’s first ever New Music Biennial. Montague will write a new children’s work for 6 musicians and narrator based on tales sent in by children from different countries across the Commonwealth, which will be rewritten by award-winning playwright Zinnie Harris. The work will be premiered at Woodend Barn in Banchory (Aberdeenshire) in June 2014, followed by further performances at the South Bank Centre in London and in Glasgow as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games celebrations. The work will also be broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and recorded by NMC Records. The children’s stories will be sourced through one of Scotland’s major development charities, SCIAF’s, international partners. The commission was one of twenty announced by the PRS for Music Foundation at London’s South Bank Centre this morning. “sound has been working with Red Note since the Ensemble was established and we are delighted to continue our partnership in this exciting new commission from Stephen Montague,” says Fiona Robertson, sound Festival Director. “2014 is going to be an amazing year for Scotland as the Commonwealth Games are staged in Glasgow. What better way to celebrate this great international event than to bring together young people from across the Commonwealth in a new work of art.” John Harris, Red Note Ensemble Chief Executive, added "We're delighted to be partnering sound Festival to perform this new commission by Stephen. He's a great composer and we're looking forward so much to working with him and presenting his work. It'll be really interesting to see how he approaches the stories that the children bring and weaves his music around and within them sound is also a partner in one of the more active of the New Music Biennial, commissions. Blending skateboarding, choral singing and the unique acoustic of skate parks, Tête à Tête and composer Samuel Bordoli will team up with skaters and community choirs to make a real noise in London, Aberdeen and Glasgow. The New Music Biennial builds on the success of New Music 20x12, a music commissioning programme that saw more than 250,000 people experience new music from leading figures in the fields of contemporary classical, jazz and folk music. Beginning in January 2014, the first edition of the New Music Biennial has been developed in partnership with Creative Scotland, Arts Council England and the British Council. The 20 brand new commissions selected from over 130 proposals will receive premiere performances in 2014 across the length and breadth of the UK. All twenty pieces will also be featured at two weekend showcases hosted by London’s Southbank Centre (4-6 July 2014) and Glasgow UNESCO City of Music (2-3 Aug 2014) and on BBC Radio 3. NMC Recordings will be releasing each piece of new music via digital downloads. The works selected for the New Music Biennial cover a wide range of genres, reflecting the diversity and richness of musical life across the UK - from contemporary classical, folk and jazz to world music, urban and electronic. Vanessa Reed, Executive Director of PRS for Music Foundation, said: “As lead funder of new music in the UK, we’re constantly inspired by the imagination and quality of the many composers and commissioning organisations we support. The New Music Biennial gives us the opportunity to celebrate this creativity by presenting outstanding new music – in any genre – which has the potential to inspire audiences across the UK. “ Celebrated Scottish musician, Dame Evelyn Glennie, who was a member of the judging panel, added: “There is no shortage of talent, imagination and creativity in the UK and the excellent applications to the New Music Biennial have proved this.” Ends For further information on the sound Festival contact: Lesley Booth 0779 941 4474 / [email protected] Or Anne Watson [email protected] For further information on Red Note Ensemble contact [email protected] For further information on Woodend Barn contact [email protected] For further information about New Music Biennial Talia Hull 07834 431 007 [email protected] Notes for Editors sound is the North East of Scotland's festival of new music. It is an initiative of Woodend Barn and the University of Aberdeen which operates as a network of local and some national organisations. Following a pilot event, "Upbeat" in 2004, the first festival was launched in November 2005. sound is now an annual event, which aims to make new music more accessible to audiences of all ages and backgrounds by presenting an eclectic but very broad range of contemporary music - classical, traditional, popular, jazz, experimental - through a wide array of events including concerts, talks, electroacoustic installations, and workshops. As well as programming its own events, sound operates as an umbrella for a range of concerts, workshops, masterclasses and performances programmed by other organisations in the North East. Dame Evelyn Glennie, James MacMillan and Rohan de Saram are current Patrons of the Festival. Red Note is a Scottish-based professional music ensemble, dedicated todeveloping and performing contemporary music to the highest standards, and taking the music out to audiences around and beyond Scotland.The ensemble was founded in 2008 by Scottish cellist Robert Irvine, and is now directed by John Harris (Chief Executive) and Robert Irvine (Artistic Director). Red Note performs the established classics of contemporary music; they commission new music; they develop the work of new and emerging composers from around the world; and they work hard in new spaces to find new audiences. Their performing ensemble is drawn from the deep talent pool of Scottish new music expertise, and they count amongst their players some of the very finest performers working in the UK today. Red Note made its debut in May 2008 with a recording of Eddie McGuire’s Carrochan Suite for Delphian records, and since then the ensemble has rapidly gained profile and support. Red Note undertakes a Spring and Autumn season each year in Scotland comprising tours, site-specific work and collaborations with other companies, and runs a regular new music series showcasing the work of new composers (Noisy Nights and Noisy Words) in the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. They are also extensively involved in the education sector, particularly at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, and at Glasgow University. They are also actively developing collaborations and new work with companies abroad.Red Note is delighted to have been appointed Contemporary Ensemble-in-Residence at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, and an Associate Company of the Traverse Theatre. Woodend Barn On the edge of Banchory in Aberdeenshire, Woodend Barn is a hub of creativity, hosting a diverse programme of music, theatre, comedy, dance, film, children’s events, art exhibitions and workshops. We are one of the leading arts centres in Scotland and Aberdeenshire's only professional multi-arts centre and independent art gallery. In September 2012, Woodend Barn celebrated the 20th anniversary of the community play which planted the seed which grew into today's thriving, rural arts venue. We operate with a unique combination of paid staff and volunteers. Stephen Montague grew up in Idaho, West Virginia and Florida. He studied piano, conducting and composition at Florida State University (1963-67), received a doctorate in composition from Ohio State University (1972) and won a Fulbright Fellowship to work in Warsaw, Poland (1972-74). He first came to England as a musician with Strider Dance Co. (Richard Alston & co.), but since 1975 has worked as a freelance composer based in London and touring worldwide. His music has been widely performed, featuring in numerous international festivals, most recently at the BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall, London), Sounds New (Canterbury), Wiener Musik Tage (Vienna), and Festival of Contemporary Music (Mexico City). Composer Portrait concerts devoted to his music have been given in London, Cambridge, New York, Houston, Mexico City, Vienna and Budapest. Major commissions include the BBC Proms, Portsmouth Cathedral (UK), Calgary Philharmonic (Canada), Hilliard Ensemble, International Computer Music Association, and a 35-minute work for narrator and orchestra for the London Symphony Orchestra (Benjamin Luxon, narrator) for the Barbican Centre, London, (with a further 14 performances by other leading British orchestras around the UK). In addition to writing for traditional orchestral forces Montague has also written numerous more ‘experimental’ works such as his Horn Concerto for klaxon horn soloist and an orchestra of automobiles, and a concerto for piano, 8 motorcycles, brass and percussion. Although a long term UK resident, his compositional influences are often transatlantic. He comments: “I have lived in Britain since 1974 but my musical heroes remain American: I admire Charles Ives’s unapologetic juxtaposition of vernacular music and the avant-garde, Henry Cowell’s irreverent use of fist and arm clusters, the propulsive energy of minimalism and John Cage’s radical dictum that all sound is music”. Stephen Montague was a founder (1980) of Sonic Arts Network, Concert Director (1983-87) and Chair; Chair and Artistic Director of the SPNM (Society for the Promotion of New Music) 1993-98; Associate Composer with The Orchestra of St Johns, London (1995-97); Featured Composer: City of Oxford (1997-98); Artistic Director of Contemporary Music Making for All (2004-05); and the New Music Associate at Kettle’s Yard Gallery and Museum, Cambridge (2010-12), where he curates a monthly concert series.