Composer Luke Bedford has been named as one of three recipients of the Ernst von Siemens Foundation Composers’ Prize 2012. The Scottish Ensemble has commissioned Luke to create a new work for the group as a companion piece to Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and will be giving the première performances of the new piece -Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale – during the Ensemble’s tour from 17 – 24 February.Born in 1978, Luke studied at the Royal Academy of Music and now lives in Berlin. He has won several prizes for his compositions and is the first Composer in Residence at Wigmore Hall, London. Like Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale has been written for solo viola and violin, string orchestra, oboes and horns. The Ensemble will be joined in February by world-class viola player Lawrence Power to perform the viola solos in both of these works with the solo violin being performed by Scottish Ensemble Artistic Director Jonathan Morton.
If you’d like to hear Luke’s music live for yourself, we’ll be giving the first performance of Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale on Friday 17 February in Inverness and then touring to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee, Perth and Glasgow. The piece will then receive its London première on Friday 24 February at Wigmore Hall. Full concert and booking information can be found on our forthcoming concerts page. You can listen to clips of Luke’s music, read his biography and find out more about his compositions at his page on Universal Edition’s website.
Luke will formally receive his award from the president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Dieter Borchmeyer, at a musical ceremony in Munich in the Cuvilliés Theatre on 22 June 2012.The Ensemble Modern will perform music by Luke and the other prizewinners Zeynep Gedizlioglu and Ulrich Alexander Kreppein.