- Andi Spicer
Andrew John Preston "Andi" Spicer (born 1959 in
Birmingham , U.K.), is a Britishelectroacoustic classical music composer who uses electronics (seeElectronic Music (classical) ) in his compositions.The composer is also a
writer andjournalist . He has contributed toThe Wall Street Journal [http://online.wsj.com/article/PA2VJBNA4R/SB114014658976576708-search.html] [http://online.wsj.com/article/PA2VJBNA4R/SB116673909806557115-search.html] andThe Gramophone as a reviewer [http://www.ecmrecords.com/Press_Reactions/New_Series/1900/Pressreactions_1967.php] and has written for many international newspapers, magazines andnews agencies , includingDow Jones Newswires andThe Associated Press .History and influences
He studied economics at
Aston University inBirmingham and pursued a career in journalism, while composing and performing free formimprovised music (seefree improvisation ). He lived inJohannesburg ,South Africa between 1996 and 2003, after which he moved back to England. Since then he has been a member of the New Music Brighton [http://www.newmusicbrighton.co.uk] and London Forum [http://www.forumcomposers.org.uk/] collectives of composers in the UK. His compositions have been featured at theBrighton Festival , Soundwaves Festival [http://www.soundwaves-festival.org.uk/programme/event03.php] ,Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival ,Royal College of Music in London, London COMA Summer School, [http://www.coma.org/summerschool/index.html] [http://www.coma.org/] Bille en Tête Festival (Musique En Roue Libre) in Arras, France [http://www.billeentete.org/resources/depliant2rectoverso.pdf] [http://www.billeentete.org/2.html] and at the All Ears Contemporary Music Festival [http://at.orpheusweb.co.uk/forum/concrt.htm] in London, as well as at theGrahamstown Festival in South Africa and performed elsewhere in France, Mexico and the U.S. He is largely self-taught, although he took private lessons in composition and music theory with South African composerMartin Watt at theUniversity of the Witwatersrand and composition workshops with British composerMichael Finnissy . His music uses serialist techniques (seeserialism ),improvisation ,graphic notation , electronics (seeelectronic art music ) and emphasizes surface textures, but is also influenced by southern African and Asianworld music .He is associated with the Gallery III [http://www.111.co.za] group of artists, musicians and multi-media artists in
Johannesburg ,South Africa . Spicer is among a new generation of composers in post-apartheid (seeapartheid ) South Africa. Other examples areDimitri Voudouris , Jürgen Bräninger, [http://www.otoplasma.com/bio.html Cobi van Tonder] ,Hannes Taljaard , [http://sacomposers.up.ac.za/t_Taljaard_Hannes.html] Michael Blake (seeMichael Blake - Composer ) [http://sacomposers.up.ac.za/b_Blake_Michael.html]Robert Fokkens and Spicer's teacherMartin Watt .Compositions
In "Anglo Boer War" (1999) he explored cluster note (see
tone clusters ) andmicrotonal techniques. The piece is a strident anti-war composition written for the hundredth anniversary of the Anglo Boer War (seeSecond Boer War ) and was a collaboration with the artist James de Villiers.His "63 Moons" (2003) composition was heavily influenced by Javanese
gamelan music , Shonambira music (seeShona music ) and contemporary minimalist (seeminimalist music ) composers."Click Language" (2004) continued Spicer's African themes and uses sampled words from southern African
click language s such as Xhosa (seeXhosa language ), Zulu (seeZulu language ) andKhoisan languages as a sound patina for four percussionists, comprisingvibraphone ,marimba ,waterphone and other hand-held instruments. "Baobab" (2003) employspolyrhythms inspired by southern African drumming and features the vibraphone and marimba. There is a version of Baobab forharpsichord (2006), written for Polish harpsichordist Kasia Tomczak-Feltrin. [http://www.harpsichord.org.uk/guests/kasiatomczak.htm] . He is presently writing an opera for video based onArno Schmidt 's novel "The Egghead Republic" ("Die Gelehrtenrepublik").Recent works have explored live electronics and acoustic instrument blends, [http://www.coteo.com/opalenews/index.php?search=&index=&lg=1&id_bouton=6&fiche=14087&page] including
midi instruments. Since the beginning of 2006, he has worked closely with French woodwind and electronic music soloist Julien Feltrin. [http://www.julienfeltrin.blogspot.com/] Spicer has also worked with London-based percussion ensemble Brake Drum Assembly. [http://www.brakedrumassembly.co.uk/] He formed the ensemble Caos Harmonia [http://www.111.co.za/Archive/Multimedia_files/Caos%20Web/caos_harmonia_and_111_production.htm] to perform his music in 1997.Film and video
Austrian video artist Peter Gold [http://www.cinematography.at] produced a short film for three movements of "Anglo Boer War" for the 2006 All Ears Contemporary Music Festival in London. Antarctica (1995-1996) is an early work for electronics written for an unreleased video of Antarctic (see
Antarctica ) landscapes.Art installations
Spicer collaborated with performance artist [http://www.usodimare.com Paolo Giudici] in the installation "Thesis" at the Hockney Gallery at the
Royal College of Art in London in 2006. Painter/multimedia artist James de Villiers worked with Spicer in "The Architecture of Air", [http://www.111.co.za/Archive/ArchivePage/arc1.jpg] which toured the US, Mexico and South Africa in 2001-2003 with "Transformations", [http://www.111.co.za/Architecture%20of%20Air/transmigrations_at_pretoria_art_.htm] an exhibition of South African art. "Inside, Outside" (2001) is an electronic piece for a James de Villiers' installation of the same title shown at Carfax [http://www.carfax.co.za/] in Johannesburg.Selected Works
*"Antarctica" (1995-6) - for electronics, video
*"Virtually Ambient Shostakovich" (1997) - for voices, sampler and keyboards
*"Anglo Boer War" (1999) – for voices, strings and electronic manipulation
*"String Quartet Four" (2000) – forstring quartet
*"Sequenzas" (2000) – forpiano
*"Auto da Fe" (2002) – fororchestra
*"In Memoriam Valdemar Rodriquez" (2002) - for orchestra
*"63 Moons" (2003) – variations for world music instruments, percussion andsynthesizer s
*"Bigga Digga" (2004) - for voices
*"Shakespeare Whispers" (2004) - for voices
*"Baobab" (2004) – forpercussion quartet
*"Click Language" (2005) – for percussion quartet and electronics
*"pHyTHoN" (2005) - for French horn & piano
*"Four Pieces" (2005) - for brass quintet
*"Bird" (2006) – forvibraphone and electronics
*"Euclid Alone" (2006) – for Paetzold Great Bass, tenorrecorder s & electronics,French horn and percussion quartet
*"The Anthropic Principle" (2006) – for midiwind controller andlaptop
*"Polonnaruwa" (2006) – for laptop electronics
*"Baobab" (2004) – revised forharpsichord (2006)
*"Haut Voltage" (2006) - improvisation for midi wind controller,clarinet and laptop electronics
*"The Giraffe Sleeper" (2007) - for chamber orchestra, piano and laptop electronics
*"Cold, Cold" (2007) - for laptop electronics and manipulated voice, words by Chris Edwards
*"For Dimitri Voudouris" (2007) - for laptop electronics, electronically manipulated altosaxophone and French horn
*"The Ankithera Mechanism" (2008) - fornatural horn & electronics
*"Nazca" (2008) - for chamber orchestra & latop electronics
*"Hydrogen" (2008) - for flute & laptop electronicsExternal links
* [http://andispicercomposer.moonfruit.com/ Andi Spicer's Official website]
* [http://www.gaudeamus.nl/ The Gaudemus Foundation]
* [http://www.soundwaves-festival.org.uk/welcome.php Soundwaves Festival, Brighton]
* [http://www.ircam.fr/ IRCAM ]
* [http://www.steim.org/steim/ Steim]
* [http://www.hcmf.co.uk/index.asp Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival]
* [http://www.nafest.co.za/about_history.htm Grahamstown Festival ]
* [http://www.brightonfestivalfringe.org.uk/ Brighton Festival Fringe]
* [http://www.billeentete.org/2.html Bille en Tete Festival]
* [http://sacomposers.up.ac.za/index.html#a African Composers]
* [http://www.newmusicsa.org.za/indaba2003/ElectronicMusicGallery.pdf Electronic Music Gallery - Grahamstown Festival Indaba 2003]
* [http://www.newmusicsa.org.za/ New Music South Africa]
* [http://www.brakedrumassembly.co.uk Brake Drum Assembly]
* [http://www.julienfeltrin.blogspot.com/ Julien Feltrin]
* [http://www.vonhuene.com/paetzold_square.cfm Paetzold Recorders]
* [http://www.makingmusic.org.uk/MM/html/pdfs/CPN0809/CPN_Scott_Cok_0809.pdf Anneke Scott]
* [http://www.epidemic.net/geogb/art/artzoyd/prj/vasseur.html Pierre Vasseur]
* [http://www.111.co.za James de Villiers]
* [http://www.cinematography.at/ Peter Gold]
* [http://www.usodimare.com Paolo Giudici]
* [http://andispicer.blogspot.com/ Andi Spicer's blog]
* [http://www.harpsichord.org.uk/guests/kasiatomczak.htm/ Kasia Tomczak]
* [http://www.ecmrecords.com/Press_Reactions/New_Series/1900/Pressreactions_1967.php Gramophone review]
* [http://www.gramophone.co.uk/ The Gramophone]
* [http://netnewmusic.net/ NetNewMusic]
* [http://www.sequenza21.com/ Sequenza21]
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