Philharmonia Composers' Academy 2023: Composers Announced

23rd February 2023

News NMC Recordings

We’re delighted to announce that the three talented composers who join the Philharmonia for their 2022-23 Composers’ Academy are Nneka Cummins, Jamie Man and Arthur Keegan. They are each being commissioned to write a ten minute piece which will be performed by an ensemble of Philharmonia musicians at the Music of Today concert in May at Royal Festival Hall. NMC will then release their recordings as Volume 6 of the Composers' Academy series later in the year.

Find out more about the composers below.

Nneka Cummins (They /Them)

A freelance Composer and Lawyer based in London, Nneka’s first ever composition lesson was in September 2020 when they started at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Being from a working-class background, Nneka did not believe that a career in composition was a financially viable option.

Nneka has an interest in writing music that is groove-inspired and using extended techniques to add percussiveness to the groove they create. They often use organic elements within the groove such as flowing melodies and integration of freer lines within which evolve and have their own life and logic. Nneka seeks to create original sound worlds that take the ear beyond the orchestra and their most current exploration (Metal Tapestry) weaves metalicism and has bursts of energy within it.

They would consider exploring an Afrofuturist aesthetic and gain great influence from Afrofuturist art, music and design. Nneka wishes to explore how they, a British born Nigerian-Caribbean, can write contemporary classical work that is infused with their heritage in a modern and forward-looking way. Afrofuturism in music is well explored, but less explicitly (and perhaps consciously) in the contemporary classical genre. The classical exploration that does exist is more commonplace in the US than the UK.

Jamie Man/文珮玲 (She /Her)

In music, Jamie loves to find the simplest way to achieve the most extreme sensations. Music, in situations of live performance, seems most interesting to her when sound, light and darkness are offered as sheer physiological phenomena onto which the audience may project themselves; not the public self or the private self but the secret self.

Jamie usually meets this challenge through creative workshops or smaller preliminary pieces - a sort of speed date before a longer-term commitment. The practical needs, and the philosophical switch her work takes on, seem to transcend words. Jamie’s strongest tools for communication seem to be in her hands and working live in the rehearsal room.

Jamie is interested in the learning process of meeting a new organisation and musicians through making music together, as well as the opportunity to look again at music in the same way that we look at the stars; to see what has always been there in human time but then to have a new permission to re-imagine the constellations. Ones that might also include the orphan stars, maybe. The benefits will present themselves quite naturally in the process.

Arthur Keegan (He /Him)

Arthur comes from a completely non-musical, working-class background. He started playing pop guitar at thirteen and put on gigs and then found joy in classical music and decided to pursue composition at university. His parents didn’t complete school so, understandably, encouragement toward university education in music and then a musical career wasn’t easy to give. It was hard for his friends and family to understand that he wanted a career in something so financially risky and culturally alien as classical music. Arthur is very pleased that he stuck to his choices, persevered and is now finding a path toward composing professionally.

"In the last year I have developed a much clearer vision of the type of music I want to write and where I find expression musically. Since writing more consistently my music has become more lyrical, tightly structured, and more stylistically coherent (my pieces were stylistically eclectic before this). I now have a better understanding of my compositional voice and I have confidence in my recent work. I am ready to explore this on a larger scale and to be able to work with professional musicians in a collegiate scheme such as this would be a uniquely developmental opportunity.

I need to maintain momentum on my musical journey. I am proud to have developed several opportunities over the last two years that have been musically nourishing and developmental. By refreshing my portfolio with new works (made possible from the Paul Hamlyn Award) I opened up new opportunities such as the LSO Soundhub Showcase. I am extremely keen to continue this momentum and find the next project that will develop my work further. The Paul Hamlyn investment is now used up and I need to find the next work. This scheme could advance my career massively.’’

Listen to all of the Composers' Academy releases so far in the playlist below, and keep an eye out for the release of Volume 6 later in 2023.