Alex Taylor (composer)


Alexander Lawther Taylor is a New Zealand composer, poet and writer.
WWW alextaylorcomposer.wordpr...

Early life and education

Taylor was born in 1988 and attended Westlake Boys High School. At the University of Auckland he studied music and English. In 2011 he received an MMus with a folio of compositions for viola and orchestra, piano, clarinet and ensembles. He was supervised by Eve de Castro-Robinson and John Elmsly.

Career

Taylor sings and plays several instruments: piano, violin and saxophone. He lists the 20th and 21st century composers and musicians who have influenced him as: Europeans Anton Webern, György Ligeti and Gérard Grisey, Americans Charles Ives, Morton Feldman, Annea Lockwood and Conlon Nancarrow; New Zealanders Anthony Watson, Samuel Holloway and Eve de Castro-Robinson.
Taylor also writes poetry and specialises in setting words to music. He also composes for small ensembles, orchestras and choirs. In New Zealand the NZSO and ensemble 175 East have performed his music.
In 2012 the National Youth Orchestra premiered his work feel commissioned when he was the orchestra's Composer-in-Residence. It features viola and cor anglais solos. The third movement of the work is which was his winning entry in the NZSO Todd Corporation Young Composers Award in 2011.
Taylor has been commissioned by Westlake Boys High School to write pieces which have been performed by them: two years later for male voice choir and a summoning for the concert band.
In 2016 he attended the Darmstadt new-music/avant garde festival where he presented a show The Unauthorised History of New Zealand Music with New Zealand composer Celeste Oram.
Taylor is currently studying for a PhD at the University of California San Diego under Lei Liang.

Awards and honours

In 2012 Taylor won the SOUNZ Contemporary Award at the APRA New Zealand awards for . He was the youngest person to receive the award. He won the Composers Association of New Zealand Trust Fund Award in 2013. In 2016 Taylor was the recipient of an Arts Foundation New Generation Awards.

Selected works

Poetry

Seven prose poemsFor John CageSym phony; Industrial popping soundsHow to listen to a piece of music
  • ''Close ; Park bench; Outside, a cold day''

Articles

  • "Strange loops : circular narratives and ambivalence in Samuel Holloway’s “Impossible Songs.”" Canzona, 2009; v.30 n.51, 32–37
  • "A discourse around music." Applause , Nov 2016; n.22, 16–17

Music

Four landscapes – for string quartet
  • – a mini viola concertoStudy of two pears – a song cycle for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensembleBurlesques mecaniques – for piano trioFeel – for full orchestratwo years later – for male voice choirHorn concerto : hydraulic fracture – for horn and orchestra a summoning – for concert bandFour little pieces – for cello and piano Night text by H.D., 'Night' from her 1916 collection Sea garden Assemblage – for orchestra with painting machine On what grounds – a suite for violin, cello and theorboAsymptote – for piano trio Obtuse strategies – for piano