Royal Academy of Music

Faculty Member, Postgraduate Studies

Senior Postgraduate Tutor and Associate Head of Research

About

The music of David Gorton first began to receive attention in 2001 when he was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize while still a student. The subsequent commission for the London Sinfonietta, Oblique Prayers, outlined a distinctive and unique sound-world described by one commentator as combining “an acute imagination for delicate timbral invention with a prodigious command of the unfolding of this half-hour ritual drama” (The Independent).

Since then a number of central concerns have emerged in subsequent works: a fascination with the malleability of musical time in live performance, the extension of instrumental techniques and tuning systems, and a penchant for virtuosity and extreme gestures. These can all be found in works written for Ensemble Exposé, the Kreutzer Quartet, Jane’s Minstrels, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and soloists Christopher Redgate, Peter Sheppard Skærved, and Neil Heyde.

The same voice, but perhaps with a different mode of expression, can be found in two educational pieces published in the ABRSM Spectrum series, and in liturgical works written for the Royal Academy of Music Chamber Choir and the St Neots Parish Church Choir.

David Gorton studied composition with Harrison Birtwistle and Simon Bainbridge. His music has been recorded on the Metier, USK, and Microtonal Projects labels, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Hear and Now’, ‘In Tune’, and ‘Choral Evensong’ programmes. He lives in Cambridgeshire with his wife and daughter and teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

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