Thomas Meadowcroft

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BIOGRAPHY Thomas Meadowcroft is a freelance composer who makes music for the concert hall, theatre and radio. His work has been described as “reaching an inexpressible purity” (Le Monde), “dreamy post-rock” (The New York Times), “never-ending, sugar-sweet” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), ”hauntingly beautiful” (The Sydney Morning Herald), and “motorized nostalgia” (The Scotsman, Glasgow). Thomas’ orchestral music has been performed by, among others, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the SWR Symphony Orchestra, his choral music by Der Mädchenchor der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. His chamber music has been performed by, among others, ensemble recherche, Eklekto Percussion Collective, members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, Speak Percussion, and Yarn/Wire. His music has been presented at various international festivals and concert series including Carnegie Hall, the Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Center, Lucerne Festival and Maerzmusik Berlin. Portrait concerts of his music have been given at, among others, Iwaki Auditorium Melbourne, and Miller Theatre NYC. Australian by birth, he has lived in Berlin since 1998. To cite the writer Paul Griffiths, 'it is the resulting distance of the country of the composer's birth that informs several of his projects, in which memory is coming at us from several different removes'. This is evidenced, for example, in his three radio plays for German radio, Song Buslines, Moving Homes, and Talkback Burnback, fictional music soundscapes set in regional Australia; as well as in the sound installation for QAGOMA, Monaro Eden, which features recordings of cousin Peter's V8 hotrod. Along with examining aspects of Australian cultural memory, much of Meadowcroft's music addresses the political economy of music as part of each work's realization. The News in Music, for live symphony orchestra, examines TV news music and orchestral media in the service of power, whereas Die Kinder über dem Informationsmeer (Children over a Sea of Information), for children's choir and string orchestra, sees children reciting texts culled from YouTube user threads, while accompanied by chamber pop string arrangements. Another Children’s Television sees the live presentation of recordings of lost 1970’s library music for public-funded children’s television programs. As performer, he as performed at various festivals and series, inlcuding Holland Festival, Issue Project Room, Huddersifeld Contemprary Music Festival and the Pavillion at die Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. In 2015 he made orchestral arrangements of the music of Dirk von Lowtzow for the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg, as part of the opera, Von einem, der auszog..., by René Pollesch. His music has been released on Mode Records, New York. (current to May 2022)

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WORK /// 2022 Forever Turnarounds (for studio orchestra; for members of the South West German Radio Big Band and Symphony Orchestra) - Another Children’s Television (chamber music for ‘Yarn/Wire’) - Forward Through Circles (chamber music for ‘Yarn/Wire’) /// 2021 Alleinunterhaltung für Alleinunterhalter (solo concert-install for Berlin Volksbuehne) - Talkback Burnback (radio play for Deutschlandfunk Kultur) - Rolando Continuo (solo percussion music for Nathan Gatenby and Australian Academy of Music) /// 2020 More Beautiful Discourse (chamber music for Hammond organ and string trio, for ‘ensemble recherche’) /// 2019 Die Kinder über dem Informationsmeer / Children over a Sea of Information (for children’s choir and string orchestra; for Der Mädchenchor der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin and 'Solistenensemble Kaliedoskop') - So Long Country (gamelan performance for Kamrul Hussin, Megan Samardin, Derick Danker and ‘Speak Percussion’) /// 2018 March Static (marching band music for ‘Speak Percussion’) /// 2017 Discount Minimall (concert-install for Eklekto Percussion Collective, Geneva) - The News in Music (for symphony orchestra; for the South West German Radio SO and Ilan Volkov) /// 2016 Moving Homes (radio play for Deutschlandfunk Kultur and ABC Creative Audio Unit) - Medieval Rococo (chamber music for ‘Ensemble Offspring’) - Peacemaker Tattoo (for symphony orchestra; for the BBC SO and Brett Dean) /// 2014 Eremozoic Age Lovers (texts by Edward O Wilson, and the sweet nothings of anonymous lovers: for choir, organ and narrator; for Grete Pedersen, South West German Radio Vocalensemble), Accommodation for String Quartets (installation for QuartettPLUS1) /// 2013 Cradles (chamber music for‘Speak Percussion’) - Medieval Baroque (chamber music for 'Eklekto Percussion Collective' and 'Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin') - Walkman Antiquarian (chamber music for ‘Yarn/Wire’) -Song Buslines (radio play for Deutschlandfunk Kultur) /// 2012 Opera Abstract (three-minute-pitch-on-a-loop for Munchener Biennale) /// 2011 The Great Knot (chamber music for ‘Speak Percussion’) /// 2008 Monaro Eden (installation for Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art) - Monaro Study (for two clarinets; for the 'Elision' ensemble) /// 2007 Ezra Jack Plot (chamber music for 'Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin') / 2003 Plain Moving Landfill (percussion solo for Christian Dierstein) /// 2001 Pretty Lightweight (chamber music for ‘Klangforum Wien’), Ground Manual (chamber music for ‘ensemble recherche’) /// 2000 Home Organs (percussion sextet for ‘Les Percussions de Strasbourg’)

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MEDIA 10.11.2021 'Yarn/Wire' play Walkman Antiquarian MORE INFO _________________________ 20.10.2021 'ensemble recherche' play More Beautiful Discourse MORE INFO _________________________ 08.10.2021 Talkback Burnback MORE INFO _________________________ 25.06.2020 Mode Records Disc MORE INFO _________________________ 29.10.2017 South West German Radio SO play The News in Music MORE INFO "...cheap entertainment music. And then when somebody shows up like a village idiot, whose The News in Music is a US-American modelled news music strung together in a Hollywood-like manner, then it hails in a concert of 'boos'. (Badische Zeitung) "His collage of film music soundtracks and news jingles is really super dull." (Bavarian Radio Classic) "If (the composer) had sold each individual scrap to television companies, he would be a millionaire." (Musiktexte) "A strange brew, that hardly gives satirical sharpness to worldly turmoil, so that the ending itself only looks just as bad in contrast." (Neue Musik Zeitung) "A scrawled, film music lament about the phenomenon of fake news... more critical radio play than composition." (Neue Zuercher Zeitung) "The piece still fits into the trend of new accessibility." (Osnabruecker Zeitung) "Would it not have been better to make a radio piece out of it? After five minutes everybody gets it. What comes in the next fifteen minutes afterwards is diffident annoyance." (Schweizer Musikzeitung) "It's a scandal that not more people were outraged." (Stuttgarter Zeitung) _________________________ 24.05.2016 'Yarn/Wire' playWalkman Antiquarian MORE INFO _________________________ 04.03.2016 Moving Homes MORE INFO _________________________ 25.05.2013 'Speak Percussion' play Cradles MORE INFO _________________________ 19.04.2010 string arrangements, 'Tocotronic' MORE INFO

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CONTACT Thomas Meadowcroft: t[dot]meadowcroft[at]web[dot]de Or Philippa Allan (Real Arts): pa[at]realarts[dot]eu

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