At the weekend I was selected by an international jury as one of three prize winners in the International Composer Pyramid 2011. I am very honoured to therefore move through to the final phase of the competition, organised by Sounds New and Coups de Vent, to be held in 2012.

Here is a recording of my piece played by the ICP Ensemble, conducted by the masterful French conductor Philippe Nahon. He did an absolutely fantastic job with the ensemble, which is formed of British musicians from the Ossian Ensemble (director Darren Bloom) and players from Coups de Vent.

Momentum by ben_oliver_music

I should have more news soon about performances that will arise from being selected as a prize winner.

Markus Kinch from Film41 has made an excellent video of the recent Workers Union performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

You can hear the other pieces by Matt Kaner, Adam Fergler and Oliver Sellwood at the Workers Union soundcloud.

Here is a video of Matthew Kaner’s ‘Gauguin Sketches’ from ‘The Workers Union’ concert at Guildhall School of Music in July. Video by Markus Kinch. This was a great performance of a fantastic piece…

Here’s a recording from the performance of my new work for ensemble and electronics ‘Ripped Up’ from the premiere by the Worker’s Union a few weeks ago.

I had a brilliant day yesterday working with the Musarc choir at St. Stephen Walbrook Church.  The choir commissioned three composers, Neil Luck, Tom Chant and myself to work with the choir on new pieces.  I wrote a new piece ‘Interplay II’ for choir, piano and live electronics.  The choir were a joy to work with and their director Cathy Heller Jones did an amazing job conducting my piece.  A recording is already available thanks to Joseph Kohlmaier and while I think the electronics could perhaps be louder and further developed I think the piece as a whole is rather effective!

This is a recording of ‘The Dino Rescue Team’ with Dafydd Williams directing!  Enjoy!

Had a great week in Apeldoorn last week at the International Composers Meeting 2010 in The Netherlands.  This is a recording of my piece, ‘Broken Society’, played by orkest de ereprijs.

Shannon K. McKenzie came up with a fantastic response to the piece.  Many thanks to her for letting me post it here:

Only when you shed
Light on the dark
Can you see the darkness

We need to see the dark
To appreciate the light
Otherwise we remain blind

Blind to what’s broken
Unaware and unable
To mend what we can’t perceive

Some shine in the light
Others see it
Yet no one fixes it.

This is my ‘Suppressing Repression’ recording but now hosted from my bandcamp webpage!
Still the Ostrava Banda performing at the Ostrava Days Festival in August 2009…

This is a live recording of the Ostrava Banda playing my piece Suppressing Repression at the Ostrava Days Festival of New Music in August.