mica-info
STATEMENT
“Since my
childhood I felt the urge not only to play music, but to write it.
I asked myself what knowledge and abilities did great composers have
in order to create what they did? That question has occupied me for
my entire musical life.”
BIOGRPAHICAL NOTES
Stephen Ferguson, whose creativity is embedded in the technology of
our time, has been called a composer of “undeniable originality”
(Peter Niklas Wilson, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik). The British
composer, who hails from Glasgow, has written for classical instruments
and is a film composer as well as an internet and computer musician.
Ferguson studied piano performance (London), musicology (D. Phil.
Vienna) and has a masters in music analysis. He has composed commissioned
works for patrons such as the Edinburgh Festival, Ars Electronica,
the Salzburg Festival, WDR, BBC, Kings Lynn Festival, Musikverein
Vienna, ORF or the styrian autumn, as well as for performers such
as the Arditti String Quartet.
Between 1992 and 1996 Ferguson was assistant to György Ligeti
and editor of the Schott Ligeti Edition. He participated in Ligeti’s
projects with Pierre Boulez, Salonen, the London Philharmonic, Ensemble
Modern and Stanley Kubrick. His book on Ligeti’s piano music
was called by the Ligeti “the best analysis of my music I have
ever read”.
Stephen Ferguson was invited by John Chowning to become a visiting
scholar at Stanford Unversity and he has been a guest lecturer in
the United States and in the UK, for example at Oxford University.
As a university teacher he produced student works that were broadcast
in the leading German radio stations, Ö1, WDR, NDR, BR and SFB.
In the field of film composition the spectrum of his scores spans
from avantgarde filmmaker Valie Export to Fritz Lang. His work in
film has brought him together with musicians such as Angus Thomas
(the bassist of Miles Davis), Bubba Bryant (of George Benson) and
Jon Sass (Pink Floyd). Ferguson was invited by leading firms to create
music for their corporate design, whether Daimler-Benz, Audi, Saab
(all world-wide), or Siemens and VW.
Stephen Ferguson is the founder of the aAmplify
project, new music for the internet, with productions by 23 composers,
which can be visited at www.amplify.at. As an experienced producer
for CD, DVD and WWW he runs his own 90m_ recording studio with a large
Pro Tools system and equipment by Neve, Tube Tech, Symetrix, Neumann
etc.
Stephen Ferguson, who alternates between his homes in Vienna and Berlin,
is the recipient of many prizes for composition. For his creative
work he was awarded the honorary citizenship of the Republic of Austria.
Stephen Ferguson, 2007
NEW aAmplify-Film
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