Download RICHARD AYRES PETER PAN COMPOSER “Ayres score is a fizzy

RICHARD AYRES
PETER PAN COMPOSER
“Ayres score is a fizzy cocktail of hyperactivity, Baroque poise, Straussian pastiche, tantalising
tango and much more. Zany and anarchic, it nevertheless has a human core.” Barry Millington
on The Cricket Recovers, Evening Standard
Richard Ayres was born in Cornwall (Great Britain) in 1965. In 1986 he followed Morton
Feldman's classes at the Darmstadt and Dartington summer schools, and after this experience
decided to make music a full-time occupation.
Ayres studied composition, electronic music and trombone at Huddersfield Polytechnic,
graduating with Distinction in 1989. He moved to The Hague to study with Andriessen on the
postgraduate composition course at the Royal Conservatoire and decided to settle in Holland
permanently. Since 2006 has taught at the Amsterdam Conservatoire.
A series of NONcertos for solo instrument and ensemble/orchestra form the bedrock of Ayres
oeuvre, in which every work (even his first opera) bears a number as its title. Theatricality also
plays a large part in Ayres work. No. 36 (NONcerto for horn and ensemble) requires staging to
allow the soloist to run between two ‘mountain peaks’ and a narrative projected behind the
musicians. The work was premiered by the ASKO Ensemble, and has since been taken up by
the London Sinfonietta and Portugal’s Remix Ensemble. No. 42 ‘In the Alps’, is described by
Ayres as an animated concert. Written for soprano Barbara Hannigan and the Netherlands Wind
Ensemble, the piece was toured throughout Holland in 2008, and received its UK premiere by
the London Sinfonietta in spring 2010.
A commission from Canada’s Continuum Ensemble allowed Ayres to explore the genre of film
through a collaboration with renowned film maker Guy Maddin. No. 43 (Glorious) for ensemble
and film was premiered as part of the SHIFT Festival in Amsterdam and also received
performances at the Huddersfield Festival in the UK and in Montreal, Canada. Klangforum Wien
have premiered No. 31 NONcerto for trumpet and ensemble in 1998 and Cologne’s Musikfabrik
have performed and recorded a portrait CD of Ayres’ chamber music.
In the orchestral arena, No. 37b for orchestra was commissioned and premiered at the
Donaueschingen Musiktage by the SWR Sinfonieorchester Freiburg and Baden-Baden and has
since been taken up by the Frankfurt Radio and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras.
No. 40 (NONcerto for oboe and chamber orchestra) was premiered by Baart Schneemann and
the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra in 2006 as part of the ZaterdaagMatinnee in the
Concertgebouw and No. 30 (NONcerto for orchestra, soprano and cello) was premiered by the
CBSO at the Aldeburgh Festival and has since received performances in Russia, the Czech
Republic and the Netherlands.
Ayres is currently working on an orchestral work and his second opera, Peter Pan. His first
opera, No. 39 (The Cricket Recovers) a chamber opera based on a story by children’s author
Toon Tellegen was commissioned and premiered by Aldeburgh Almeida Opera in 2005. The
original production also went to the Bregenz Festival and new productions have now been seen
in Stuttgart, Weimar and Braunschweig.
Ayres was awarded the International Gaudeamus Prize for composition in 1994 during the
Gaudeamus Music week, and in June 1999 No.31 (NONcerto for trumpet and ensemble) was
awarded a "recommendation" at the Unesco Rostrum of Composers in Paris. In 2003 Ayres was
awarded the Vermeulen Prize, the highest award for a composition in the Netherlands. He was
Featured Composer at the Huddersfield Festival in 2003.