Handel House Appoints New Composer-in-Residence for 2007/08

Composer and music-educator John Habron will take up the role in September and his period of residency will see him work on a variety of inventive musical and educational projects with children, students, musicians and museum visitors over the next twelve months.

Among the highlights of John Habron's residency will be two new commissions for Handel House, one based around an original half-page document in Handel's own hand, which is in the Museum collection. The document contains the aria which Handel wrote to insert into the score of his oratorio Esther and represents the many revisions and additions Handel made to the score of Esther well into the late 1750s, long after its composition in 1718. This extra aria was performed in the 1751 revival at Covent Garden Theatre.

John will also lead a schools' project as part of the London Handel Festival; an autumn 2007 partnership with English Touring Opera (ETO) for schools based on Handel's Teseo; and an adult education composition project. The Museum will host regular family events, composition workshops for school children from ages 5-18 every Monday at Handel House and a series of composer surgeries for students to drop into the Museum for advice on composition and to discuss their work.

Sarah Bardwell, Director of Handel House Museum, said "We are very pleased to appoint John Habron to work with visitors of all ages, to increase their understanding of music and the works and life of Handel. The project is novel and has already introduced many children to live music and honed the skills of hundreds more."

John Habron: "The amount and variety of live music performed at Handel House, coupled with the history contained within the old rooms, makes it a very special place in which to work. I am looking forward to continuing the museum project, working with visitors - novice and experienced - to continue to bring new music to Handel's home."

The current Composer-in-Residence, Mark Bowden, will complete his residency this month with a project for young visually-impaired composers, in conjunction with the Royal National Institute of the Blind. Getting a Closer Look, a four-day composition project and public performance at Handel House, will run from 9-12 August 2007 and provide a fitting finale to Mark's residency.
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Notes to Editors
John Habron was born in Huddersfield in 1978. While a student at the University of Durham he conducted the University Symphony Orchestra. In 2000 he studied with Michael Finnissy at the University of Southampton and there gained a distinction in his MA. In 2001 John was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to write a piece for the Belcea String Quartet, 'The Sudden Walk', which was premiered in August 2002 and has been broadcast twice. His music has also been performed at festivals in Brighton, Huddersfield, York and Edinburgh and he has enjoyed close working relationships with groups such as EXAUDI, The Hola, IXION, the New Music Players, Capricorn, Gemini, The Arianna Consort and the Cornelius Cardew Ensemble. As an active tutor and animateur, John has recently completed a three-year association with Winchester College, where he established the college's 'Music in Context' seminar series. He has also mentored the CoMA Yorkshire and CoMA South Composers' Groups (Contemporary Music Making for Amateurs) and has worked as an animateur for the Pennine Spring Music Festival (2003-06) and the South Tyneside Music and Animation Summer School (2003).

John is a keen scholar whose interests include musicology and the philosophy of music. He has recently completed a PhD at the University of Southampton and is now an Early Career Teaching Fellow in Music for the university, where he lectures in composition, orchestration, harmony and counterpoint, and late twentieth-century music.

For more information, interviews and pictures, please contact Michael Barrett or Kirsten Canning at The Press Office on 020 8295 2424 or mb@thepressoffice.uk.com

Posted: 16 August 2007