Alwynne Pritchard

Alwynne Pritchard (born 1968 in Glasgow) is a British performer, composer, artist and curator based in Bergen, Norway. Her recent work, has increasingly explored relationships between musical expression and the human body and she has appeared as an actor, vocalist and physical performer in a number of stage productions, as well as developing choreography for performances of her own pieces. She is co-founder of the music-theatre company Neither Norand Artistic Director of the BIT20 ensemble.

Born in Glasgow in 1968, Alwynne began having composition lessons as a teenager with her father, Gwyn Pritchard. She went on to study with Robert Saxton at the Guildhall School of Music, and later with Melanie Daiken, Justin Connolly and Michael Finnissy at the Royal Academy of Music, where she was awarded many prizes for her work. During this time she also studied voice with the mezzo-soprano Linda Hirst.

In 1997, Alwynne was awarded a research scholarship by the University of Bristol and in 2003 received a PhD in composition. In the summer of 2000 Alwynne was awarded a Visions of Norway scholarship for a two-month artist’s residency at the Kulturhuset USF Verftet, Bergen and later returned for an extended residency three years later. In April 2007, she completed a one-year residency at the Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia in Bamberg, Bavaria after which she spent a year living in Berlin; from June until August 2010, she was resident at PointB Worklodge, New York; and in 2012 she was Artist in Residence (with Thorolf Thuestad) at the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA) in Los Baños, Philippines.

In 2002, the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave the first performance of Alwynne’s orchestral work Critical Mass, and in March 2007 her piano concerto Map of the Moon was premiered by Nicolas Hodges and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Decoy, created at the Heinrich Strobel Stiftung, Freiburg, in 2005 for the Donaueschingen Musiktage, was awarded the special prize given by the Foundation Ton Bruynèl, STEIM and the Foundation GAUDEAMUS. Commissions in the last ten years have seen Alwynne’s work move more frequently in the direction of music-theatre, and have included Frame, for the Athelas Sinfonietta Denmark, live electronics, tape and film as part of the European Integra project, premiered at the Sound Around festival, Copenhagen, in October 2007; Don’t touch me, you don’t know where I’ve been, for her own voice, Norwegian flautist Bjørnar Habbestad, asamisimasa ensemble and live electronics (developed by Thorolf Thuestad at BEK in Bergen) premiered at the Borealis festival in March 2008; Flutterby, for electric guitar and two computers for Luc Houtkamp’s POW ensemble; Objects of Desire, for ensemble recherche, premiered at the Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, in October 2010; and Oslo Emmaus, for Ensemble Fanfaronner, premiered at the Borealis festival in March 2011.

Over the last decade and a half Alwynne’s music has been performed by leading players and ensembles throughout Europe and America, including the Arditti String Quartet, Apartment House, asamisimasa, Athelas Ensemble, BBC and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Christian Dierstein, The Duke String Quartet, de ereprijs, ensemble recherche, Gemini, Nicolas Hodges, Ixion, Kaida, John Kenny, Carin Levine, London Sinfonietta, Lontano, Loré Lixenberg, Darragh Morgan, New Music Players, Nieuw Ensemble, Ian Pace, Jonathan Powell, Maja Ratkje, Parkinson Saunders, Pow Ensemble, Reservoir, Elena Riu, Jarle Rotevatn, Sarah Nicolls and the Schubert and Uroboros Ensembles. As well as being regularly heard in London and around the country, Alwynne’s music has also received performances in America, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Holland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Norway, and has often been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, as well as abroad.

In 2005, Alwynne formed the Bergen/London-based improvisation quintet FAT BATTERY (www.fatbattery.com), and has also performed as a vocalist with computer programmer Thorolf Thuestad and flautist Rowland Sutherland in the trio Myrtle; with Berlin-based hardware electronics instrument builder/improviser Guido Henneböhl in the duo Ding Dong (www.dingdongism.de); with Austrian pianist Judith Unterpertinger as unterPritperTingerchard; and with the visual artist Claire Zakiewicz in Fig..

From 2008 and until March 2014, Alwynne was Artistic Director of the Borealis Festival in Bergen, and from 2001 until 2008, she taught composition at Trinity College of Music in London. Alwynne also worked for many years as a freelance writer and presenter for BBC Radio 3 including Music in Our Time, Midnight Oil, Music Matters, Hear and Now and Discovering Music. In January 2016, she took up the position of Artistic Director of the BIT20 Ensemble.

Alwynne Pritchard is managed by Maestro Arts and her music is published by Verlag Neue Musik, Berlin.

• Rockaby (2016); 12 mins; orchestra, live foley, vocal/physical performer
• Critical Mass (2003); 22 mins; orchestra and tape
• Map of the Moon (2004); 20 mins; piano and orchestra
• World Enough (in two movements) (2005); 1 second; orchestra

• Kingdom Come (2014); 20 mins; 3 voc, hrm, electronics
• March March March (2013); 6 mins; 2fl, ob, 6cl, bsn, alt sax, ten sax, bar sax, 3hn, 3tpt, 3trb, 1euph, 2tba, 3perc
• In Nomine (2006); 3 mins; fl, ob, bcl, pno, vn, va, vc
• Decoy (2004); 17 mins; fl, ob, cl, vn, va, vc, perc, live electronics
• Word Play (2004); 12 mins; picc, fl, cl, sop sax, bar sax, 2hn, tpt, 2tbn, perc, elec bass, vc. pf
• Geometry of Pain I (2002); 10 mins; voice, vc, gtr, amplification
• Impossibility (2001); 14 mins; speaker with spoons, cl/bcl, egui, vc
• Quintet (Barbara Allen) (2000); 10 mins; 2vn, va, vc, pf
• Der Glücklose Engel (1999); 10 mins; ecl, vn, vc
• Craw (1997); 7 mins; fl, ob, cl, bn, hn, tpt, trb, pf, 2vn, va, vc
• What This Night (1997); 10 mins; ob, cl, accordion, perc, harp, 2pf
• Nocturnal (1995); 8 mins; 2vn, va, vc
• Glimpsed Most Clearly From The Corner Of Your Eye (1992); 5 mins; 7vc

• Irene Electric (2013); 15 mins; amplified violin & tape
• Graffiti (2007); 13 mins; perc, electronics
• Zero (2006); 9 mins; fl/picc/bfl, acc
• To the Ground (2005); 11 mins; violin, computer
• Matrix (2001); c. 13 mins; vn
• Nostos Ou Topos II (2000); 7 mins; gtr
• Kit (1999); c. 10 mins; voice, any instrument
• Danaides (1996); 6 mins; vc, tape
• Chiaroscuro (1995); 14 mins; trb, pf
• From this deposit a transparent bubble comes to the surface at certain times and explodes gently on reaching his lips (1994); 8 mins; bcl
• Une Mort Héroïque (1993); 9 mins; speaker (tape), va

• Loser (2014/16); 10 mins
• Geometry of Pain II (2003); 12mins; Piano and Video
• The Barnyard Song (2003); 3 mins; (for Elena Riu’s Little Book of Salsa)
• Invisible Cities (1999); 7-15 mins
• Der Zwerg (1998); 10 mins
• Mesarch (1997); 5mins
• So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen (1993); 5 mins; (Transcription after Bach)
• Spring (1996); 1 min

• Wir kommen und wir gehen (with Christian Jendreiko) (2016); choir
• Piece for girls’ choir (with Amnon Wolman) (2016); female choir
• havi ikki pláss fyri fleiri eygum (2014) 4 mins 45 secs; S.S.A.A.T.T.B.B.
• As in Heaven (2007); 21/2 mins; S.S.A.Bar.T.B
• Homecoming (2003); 20 mins; 5 amplified sopranos, electronics
• Le Crépuscule du Soir (1996); 14 mins; sop, pf

• Vitality Forms 6 (2016); 7-10 mins; vocal/physical performer
• Vitality Forms 5 (2016); 7-10 mins; vocal/physical performer
• Homing (2015); 20 mins; 3 vocal performers, electronics + 21 physical performers
• Vitality Forms 4 (2015); 7-10 mins; vocal/physical performer
• Vitality Forms 3 (2015); 7-10 mins; vocal/physical performer
• Vitality Forms 2 (2015); 10 mins; mixed ensemble min 5 players + 3 vocal & 3 facial performers
• Vitality Forms 1 (2015); 7-10 mins; vocal/physical performer
• Hospice Lazy (2014); 60 mins; pf, vn, vc, electronics + physical performer
• Erika married the Eiffel Tower (2013); 20 mins; fl, ob, bass cl, 2 pianists/1 piano, vn, va, vc, video
• Oh no love, you’re not alone (2013); 15 mins; voice, pf, vn, vc, video
• Objects of Desire (2010); 15 mins; pno, vn, va + 3 additional performers
• Oslo Emmaus (2010); 18 mins; sop, alt, pf, video
• Source of Energy, Routes of Power (2010); 15 mins; ob, 2 voices, pf, vn
• Flutterby (2009); 15 mins; e-gtr, 2 computers
• Don’t touch me, you don’t know where I’ve been (2008); Music Drama; 35 mins; fl/picc, cl/bcl, voice, perc, pf, gtr, electronics
• Frame (2007); Music Drama; 15 mins; picc, ob, cl, bn, hn, tpt, tbn, perc, harp, gtr, vn, va, vc, db, video (2 screens), electronics
• Heroic Death – Une Mort Héroïque revised (1998); 20 mins; Chamber Opera; 2sop, bar, vc

Hamlet Machine (with Thorolf Thuestad) (2016); music and sound design for the Scènes Théâtre Cinéma/Neither Nor production of Heiner Müller’s Hamlet Machine

• A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor (2009) (with Thorolf Thuestad)
• Don’t touch me, you don’t know where I’ve been (2008) (installation version, with Thorolf Thuestad)

• Thor Sleeps (2004); 7 mins; for any 4 instruments and at least one pair of hands
• Barbara Allen (Fragments of a Lament) (2000); 4 or 8 mins; vn, vn (va), vc, db, pf

• Höchster from Cantata BWV51 (2004); 10 mins; Transcription of Bach for soprano, accordion, vn, vc