Mark David Boden was born in England in May 1986. He graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2008 with a First Class Honours degree in Composition and Contemporary Studies. Whilst at RWCMD, 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 Kenneth 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.
Mark's music has been performed across the UK by a variety of different instrumentalists and ensembles including the PM Ensemble, the Ossian Ensemble, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Alissa Firsova and Xenia Pestova (Piano), Kate Price (Cello), and Carla Rees (Alto Flute). In 2011, Mark began a three-year residency with the University of St. Andrews Symphony Orchestra and is currently writing a new chamber work for the Hebrides Ensemble.
During his time at RWCMD, 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). He has been awarded a Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal (2008), the LSQ New Music Competition First Prize (2008), the Composer's of Wales William Mathias Composition Prize (2009), The Friends of the Music of St.Giles Cathedral Composition Competition (2010), the British Composer Awards Student Competition (2010) and the University of St. Andrews 600th Anniversary Composition Competition (2011).
Laura Jayne Bowler
Listen to: Masquerade (excerpt)
Laura Bowler is a young composer and mezzo-soprano living and working in London. Her work is influenced by many composers and artists ranging from Stephen Sondheim to Harrison Birtwistle, the paintings of Kandinsky to the theatre of Antonin Artaud. Her passion for working in the theatre is apparent in her compositional output with numerous theatre pieces alongside many concert works with a theatrical influence or performance quality.
Laura is currently working on commissions for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, a string quintet for the Kreutzer Quartet with double bassist Rachel Meerloo, a collaboration with the award-winning playwright Lavinia Murray; a long term project aiming towards a full-length chamber opera based on E. T. A. Hoffman's 'The Sandman' and a cello concerto for Oliver Coates and the Azalea Ensemble. She has been commissioned by The Opera Group, ROH2, Tete a Tete Opera, Grimeborn Opera, London Sinfonietta, Esbjerg Ensemble and The Kreutzer Quartet among others and has received performances throughout Europe and in the USA. In the past Laura has been accepted as a scholarship student to several composition summer schools including the Voix Nouvelles Composition Course at the Fondation Royaumont with Brian Ferneyhough, the IMD Darmstadt summer school and the Dartington International Festival Advanced Composition course with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.
Having completed her BMus (Hons) at the Royal Northern College of Music and as an Erasmus scholar at the Sibelius Academy of Music followed by her Masters in Composition at the Royal Academy of Music studying with Gary Carpenter generously supported by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Scholarship, she is now undertaking her PhD in Composition funded by the AHRC at the Royal Academy of Music supervised by Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Gary Carpenter.
David Curington
Listen to: Oboe Quartet (excerpt)
David Curington studied composition at masters’ level at the RNCM with Gary Carpenter whilst taking oboe lessons from Melinda Maxwell, graduating with the Soroptomist International Award for composers, and the Evelyn Rothwell Prize for oboists. He has recently been accepted onto the LPO Leverhulme Young Composers Scheme, which, after workshops led by Julian Anderson, will result in a performance in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and is a recipient of the 2011 RPS Composition Prize, which, after workshops led by Unsuk Chin, will result in a commission for players of the Philharmonia in the Music of Today series.
During his time at the RNCM, David appeared as both composer and oboist in two RNCM Chamber Music Festivals and together with the Eblana String Trio, with whom he works regularly, was named the 2010 RNCM Ensemble of the Year. The latter resulted in a recital including a performance of the Carter Oboe Quartet and a premiere of his Oboe Quartet, described as “a suave reading” and “impressively unified” respectively by The Times. Amongst performances in various RNCM composer festivals, including two at the Wigmore Hall, David performed Ferneyhough’s Coloratura to the composer with pianist Richard Casey in the RNCM Ferneyhough Day and his ‘cello duo Two Journeys and Two Comparisons was performed to great acclaim at the 2010 PLG Young Composers’ Symposium by Tom Bayman and David McCann. David was selected as a composer for the 2011 RNCM Gold Medal Weekend, resulting in a collaboration with euphonium player Lewis Musson.
Hollie Harding
Listen to: Refracted Chorale (excerpt)
Hollie Harding graduated from Trinity College of Music July 2009, receiving First-Class Honors, the Silver Medal for Composition and the Cyril Cork Prize. She is currently studying for a Masters in Composition under David Sawer at the Royal Academy of Music with funding from the AHRC (Arts Humanities Research Council) and Ralph Vaughan-Williams Trust.
Hollie also has an ongoing relationship with the Borealis Festival of New Music, Bergen since undertaking a six-week Internship and Young Composer in Residence Post in 2010, awarded by The Council of Bergen and Stifelsen Kulturhuset USF Verftet. She returned 2011, to act as Producer to the Festival - working for Festival Director, former teacher and mentor Alwynne Pritchard.
Hollie’s work has been performed in England and Norway by soloists and groups including Royal Academy Symphony Orchestra, CoMa, Old Royal Naval College Chapel Choir and Christopher Redgate. The juxtaposition and layering of contrasting musical ideas dominates much of her work and she has an avid interest in mixing proximate and distal, pre-recorded and live, active and static, lyrical and pointillist. Hollie is currently experimenting with creating vaster three-dimensional musical forms through the use of sonic spatial separation.
The programme is supported by an Arts Portfolio Grant from The Leverhulme Trust. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is extremely grateful for the long-term support of The Leverhulme Trust for this programme.
