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Celebrating the choral tradition since 1960

Homo Sum by Mark David Boden

We were delighted in the summer of 2016 to have been selected for Making Music's Adopt a Composer scheme enjoyed our very successful collaboration with our adopted composer, Mark David Boden.

Throughout our 2016-2017 season, we worked closely with Mark on the creation of a new piece composed by him especially for us, culminating in a premiere performance at Croydon Minster on 1st July 2017, which was recorded and broadcast in January 2018 by BBC Radio 3.

Our pairing with Mark was announced on 10th September 2016 at an exciting launch event in London hosted by Making Music. We were honoured to have been one of only seven successful ensembles chosen to participate in the 2016-2017 project.

Adopt a Composer

Mark David Boden (left) with Croydon Bach Choir's Music Director, Tim Horton (right)

Mark David Boden

Composer

Adopt a Composer

Born in 1986, Mark graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2008 with a first-class honours degree in Composition and Contemporary Studies. Whilst there, he studied composition with Lynne Plowman and Peter Reynolds in addition to piano with Fazlidden Husanov. Mark continued his studies as a scholar at the Royal College of Music, studying composition at Masters level with Ken Hesketh, where he was generously supported by the RVW Trust and the Henry Wood Trust. He graduated with Distinction from the MMus course in Advanced Composition in 2011.

During his time at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama Mark was the recipient of several awards including the Dr David Harries Memorial Award (2006), the Eirwen Thomas Scholarship (2007) and the Composition Prize (2008). Since graduating, he has been awarded a Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal (2008), the LSQ New Music Competition First Prize (2008), the Composers of Wales William Mathias Composition Prize (2009), the Friends of the Music of St Giles Cathedral Composition Competition (2010), the British Composer Awards (BASCA) Student Competition (2010) and the University of St Andrews 600th Anniversary Composition Competition (2011). In 2015 he was awarded the prestigious John Clementi Collard Fellowship from the Worshipful Company of Musicians, having been nominated for the award by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Mark's music has been performed across the UK by a variety of different instrumentalists and ensembles including the Hebrides Ensemble, the PM Ensemble, the Ossian Ensemble, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Cymru, Camerata Nordica, Alissa Firsova and Xenia Pestova (piano), Kate Price (cello), and Carla Rees (alto flute). Several of his works have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, including Six Degrees, Siegfried Stanzas and Fuochi Distanti with further broadcasts of new works scheduled for 2016 and 2017.

In 2011, Mark began a three-year residency with the University of St. Andrews Symphony Orchestra and in 2012 was appointed composer-in-residence with King Edward's School, Bath. He has been commissioned by a varied range of ensembles including London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hebrides Ensemble, Bath Abbey Choir and Sinfonia Cymru in addition to writing for the ABRSM and numerous amateur groups.

Highlights for 2016 included the premiere of a new score for BBC National Orchestra of Wales as part of the Vale of Glamorgan Festival, an event which will also see the first performance of a string quartet 'Forgotten Time' commissioned by the festival for Quatour Tana (Belgium). Several other pieces will shortly be premiered and toured by a range of instrumentalists and ensembles including the Nexus Reed Quintet (Switzerland), the Lunar Saxophone Quartet (UK), and violinist Bartosz Woroch, who will premiere a substantial new chamber work in Poland during Autumn 2016.

Between 2007-2012, Mark worked as a tutor in the Junior Conservatoire at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama .He is currently a lecturer in Music at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and was appointed Sir William Walton Trust Junior Fellow in Composition between 2012 and 2014. Mark was Artistic Advisor to Sinfonia Newydd from 2012-2015. His music is published by Cadenza Music, cadenza-music.com.

For further information about Mark, visit his website markdavidboden.com.

Making Music's Adopt a Composer Scheme

Adopt a composer is a project linking the UK's up-and-coming composing talent with its vibrant voluntary music scene.

This unique scheme offers amateur musicians the chance to work directly with an emerging composer, become involved in the creative process and contribute to the development of a new composition. The composer, in return, has the opportunity to form a close working relationship with the ensemble and to respond to the group's personalities and interests, which is not always possible in professional commissions.

Adopt a Composer works exclusively with composers at the start of their careers, giving them crucial "real world" composing experience. Since it began in 2000, Adopt a Composer has produced over 100 new commissions, with many of the composers going on to have success nationally and internationally.

The project also gives excellent exposure for both the composers and groups, with recordings of many of the pieces broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Adopt a Composer is run by Making Music in partnership with Sound and Music, in association with BBC Radio 3, UK project funded by PRS for Music Foundation and the Philip Dorothy Green Music Trust.

Adopt a Composer
Adopt a Composer
Adopt a Composer