Martin Scheuregger is a musicologist and composer, currently working as a Research Fellow on the Score to Sound project at the Contemporary Music Research Centre, University of York.
He takes an inter-disciplinary approach to research, combining musical analysis and composition as he explores notions of time and brevity in music. Recent work has seen him move towards areas of public engagement, as he brings together his expertise as a scholar and ensemble director to investigate new ways of effectively presenting contemporary music, in concerts, events, online and in recordings.
As the first Composer-in-Residence at theBritish Music Collection (2014-15; supported by Sound and Music), Martin worked with contemporary music group CHROMA to curate concerts in London and as part of Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Martin is also a Sound and Music New Voice composer and co-directs contemporary music group Dark Inventions.
Aware of music of the past as much as that of the present, Martin aims to write music that both engages and challenges audiences. With particular interest in notions of miniaturisation and brevity, Martin is interested in how such ideas inform large-scale works. This work is reflected in his PhD thesis, which combined analysis and composition in a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, under the supervision of Thomas Simaku, and Tim Howell.
Martin was recipient of the 2012 Lyons Celebration Award and was commissioned to write a work for the University of York Chamber Orchestra. Do not keep silent for solo piano and chamber orchestra was premiered in June 2013. He has studied composition with Roger Marsh, Ambrose Field and Thomas Simaku, and taken lessons with Richard Ayres, Carola Bauckholt, Dimitri Kourliandski, Martijn Padding and others. Having also worked with a wide variety of musicians, Martin enjoys exploring how his music can work in a variety of contexts, from solo recitals settings to theatrical works.
Black Swans is featured on Dark Inventions’ debut EP Hinterland (2013), and in 2014 the group premiered The Four Last Things as part of a UK tour. In 2015 they recorded The Four Last Things and Death and the Lady for their second CD, ‘Firewheel’ (2016). A work for clarinet and percussion was recorded by Jonathan Sage and Delia Stevens in 2015 and will be performed as part of the York Festival of Ideas in June 2016. As part of the Festival, Martin is curating an event based around a rare performance of Ligeti’s Poème Symphonique, a work for 100 metronomes.
Conference presentations have taken Martin across the UK and abroad, including recent papers at ISCM World Music Days, Wroc?aw; CeReNeM, University of Huddersfield; and Orpheus Institute, Ghent. His music has been performed in the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Germany and Holland, and in 2015 In that solitude was awarded first prize in the Creative Responses to Modernism Competition at King’s College, London.
Martin has published on the music of György Kurtág, and will present at the Musicological Conference on the 90thBirthday of György Kurtág in Budapest in June 2016. He has written about his own music in relation to Modernism for the journal Textual Practice, curated an exhibition on British Music for the Google Cultural Institute, written for Classical Music Magazine and regularly reviews concerts for the York Press. Forthcoming papers include an analysis of Thomas Simaku’s Concerto for Orchestra – winner of the International Competition for Lutoslawski 100th birthday (2013) – and studies of the music of George Benjamin.