Download a PDF of the programme notes here.
The tenth of Zoë Beyers' conversations in The Music Room is with Shropshire-based international composer Luke Bedford.
Luke Bedford, a composer of international renown, has written a piece for solo violin, Double Prelude, specifically for Episode 10 of The Music Room. Zoë and Luke will be discussing the inspiration behind Double Prelude and the art and method of Luke’s compositional process. The programme will feature the world première of the work, which juxtaposes the sonority of Bach’s solo violin music with fleeting, lilting snatches of dream-like melody.
Luke Bedford is a young British composer who has quietly made a significant name among the composers of his generation with a series of award-winning scores that are now being performed internationally.
Luke was born in 1978 and studied composition at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music with Edwin Roxburgh and Simon Bainbridge. In 2001, the London Sinfonietta premièred Five Abstracts - a chamber work for 14 players. BBC commissions followed, as well as premières of all subsequent major works by the Hallé Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the London Sinfonietta and the London Symphony Orchestra.
Bedford won a prestigious Paul Hamlyn Artists Award in 2007, and that year wrote Wreathe for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, which won a British Composer Award in 2008. He was the first ever composer in residence at the Wigmore Hall in London, which has earned him numerous commissions. Bedford was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung Composer’s Prize in music at this time.
A new orchestral score Instability, commissioned by the BBC Proms, was premièred in August 2015 by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Juanjo Mena, and BCMG commissioned In Bright Black Ink for the close of their 2015/16 season. Luke is currently working on a new piece for London Sinfonietta and a concerto for Colin Currie and the Philharmonia in 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Bedford
Image © Manu Theobald
The conversation – to be broadcast on YouTube or on Vimeo from 19:30 to 20:30 (GMT) on Friday, 6th November 2020 – will be followed by a Zoom Q&A session hosted by Luke, either on Saturday 7th November at 20:30. If you would like to take part, please email
