Hugh Davies (composer)
Hugh Seymour Davies ( born April 23, 1943 in Exmouth, England; † 1 January 2005, London ) was a British musician and composer of new and improvised music. He was one of the pioneers of electroacoustic music.
Life and work
Even as a teenager, Davies Karlheinz Stockhausen bought " Song of the Youths " as a plate and dealt with Stockhausen's musical language. After attending Westminster School, he studied from 1961 to 1964 Music at the University of Oxford history of music, harmony and counterpoint with Frank Harrison and Edmund Rubbra. He then worked for two years in Cologne as a personal assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen. As a member of the ensemble, he participated in the recording of " microphonic I" while getting to that developed by the WDR engineer Jaap Spek and Stockhausen method of using contact microphones to know. Then he worked for the Groupe de Recherches Musicales French radio and cataloged all that time recordings of electronic music. In 1967, he began to change the function of objects found with the help of Kontaktmikroponen to electronically amplified musical instruments; He developed the " Shozyg " that consisted of various reinforced objects, which were installed in a band of a lexicon, comprising the definition of " Sho " to " Zyg ". In the same year Davies founded the Goldsmith 's College of Electronic Music Studio at the University of London, of which he was until 1986 ( he was there until 1999, working as a consultant ). Since 1986 he has worked as a consultant for electronic instruments to the music department of Gemeentelijk Museum of The Hague. From 1999, he taught and conducted research at Middlesex University.
Together with Derek Bailey, Evan Parker and percussionist Jamie Muir founded Davies 1968, the Music Improvisation Company, whose first album was released in late 1969 by ECM. He also worked with the ensemble Gentle Fire, the aufführte electronic music. During the 1970s he was also a member of the Artist Placement Group.
1982 Davies was one of the founders of the Confédération Internationale de la Musique Electroacoustique whose secretary he was until 1986. As a composer, Davies not only wrote music for conventional instruments, but mainly focused on electronic music ( live and on tape ) and works for the contemporary musical theater and with works for his invention of self- amplified instruments (which were also used for sound sculptures and installations. ) Frequently he performed solo. Occasionally he played in a trio improvisation, which he had with Roger Turner and John Russell. He also appeared in a duo with Hans- Karsten Raecke and with Max Eastley. Furthermore, did the collaboration with Bailey, Fred Frith, the London Improvisers Orchestra and even the pop band Talk Talk ( Spirit of Eden, 1988). He was involved in the world premiere of Jonathan Harvey's Madonna of Winter and Spring. On Phil Minton and Veryan Weston's Songs from a Prison Diary he can be heard as a singer.
Selected discography
- Performances 1969-77 ( from 1969 to 1977, another timbre )
- Shozyg: Music for Invented Instruments (1982, FMP / SAJ )
- Interplay (1996/ 97 fmr ) with John Russell & Roger Turner and Max Eastley, Hans- Karsten Raecke or Hilary Jeffrey
- Warming Up With the Iceman (2001, Rough)