Michael Zev Gordon

Michael Zev Gordon is a British composer of Jewish descent.
A past oboe player, Gordon studied composition at King's College, Cambridge with Robin Holloway, and subsequently with Oliver Knussen and John Woolrich, and in Italy with Franco Donatoni. He was a composition pupil of Louis Andriessen from 1989 to 1990. His work has often involved a deep engagement with the subject of memory, with the use of quotation of, or allusion to, other music, sometimes explicit, sometimes more buried. He has himself also spoken of his work in terms of 'turbulence seeking serenity'. Stylistically, this could be seen in the relationship between tonal and more dissonant materials in his music.
Key works include the oboe concerto The Fabric of Dreams, premiered by Nicholas Daniel and the Britten Sinfonia, The Impermanence of Things for piano, ensemble and electronics, a London Sinfonietta commission, Allele for 40 voices, a project involving the science of genetics, Bohortha for large orchestra, a BBC Symphony Orchestra commission, Seize the Day, a Birmingham Contemporary Music Group Sound Investment commission, his Violin Concerto, a BBC Symphony Orchestra commission, Touch, a virtuosic piano piece written for the Indonesian virtuoso pianist and composer Ananda Sukarlan and Raising Icarus, a chamber opera for six singers and eight instrumentalists, premiered at the Birmingham Rep.
Gordon was the recipient of the Prix Italia 2004 for his composition for radio A Pebble in the Pond, and two British Composer Awards, for Allele and for This Night for choir and solo cello, a commission for the choir of King's College, Cambridge. He has taught at the universities of Durham, Southampton and at the Royal College of Music. Since 2012 he has been Professor of Composition at the University of Birmingham. His music is published by Wise Music and Composer's Edition.

Worklist

Raising Icarus
Violin Concerto
Seize the Day
In the Middle of Things
Diary Pieces: Summer 2015
Homecoming
Sehnsucht
Into the Dark
The Gleam of Hidden Skies
Bohortha
Firm Foundations
Glass Mountain
Sanctuary
Allele
Eclipsis
Imaginary Landscapes
Seven Pastorales for Solo Oboe
Joshi's Dance
The Impermanence of Things
Mandelstam Settings
Laid Bare
Roseland
summer fallow
This Night
Oboe Concerto: The Fabric of Dreams
Fragments of a Diary
Of Here and Elsewhere
Resolution
Three Short Pieces for String Quartet
A Pebble in the Pond
There Always
On Memory: 12 Pieces for Piano
Crystal Clear
In veritate
On the Other Hand: a new tango
A Small Folly
Three Rabbinical Sayings
Ein Morgenblatt
Bells, Lachrimae and Stillness
...by the edge of the forest of desires
Plain Hunting
Still Hunting
Psalm 150
Song
Barcarola
Grace
High Ground
A Mermaid Sings
And I Will Betroth You
Jubilate
Two Dances
Dolce
Gravity and Grace II
Red Sea
Gravity and Grace I
Far Away
Thirteen Ways
False Relations
String Quartet
There We Sat Down
There We Sat Down III
Music For Andries
nine birds
no time ago...
Touch
The Path To Pen-y-gent
''Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis''