Kevin Volans (b. 1949)
Instrumentation: Solo alto saxophone
Duration: 10:46
Programmatic information: Written for Raaf Hekkema
Instrumentation: Reed quintet (oboe, clarinet, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, basoon)
Duration: 10:10
Premier information: First performed at De Doelen, Rotterdam, 12 Oct 2014 by the Calefax reed Quintet.
Instrumentation: Reed quintet (Oboe, clarinet, soprano sax, bass clarinet, bassoon)
Duration: 13:40
Premier information: First performed at De Doelen, Rotterdam, 12 Oct 2014.
Instrumentation: Reed quintet and string quartet
Duration: 18:00
Premier information: First performed at Wigmore Hall, London 2019 by the Calefax Reed Quintet and Signum quartet.
Instrumentation: Reed quintet and string quartet
Duration: 30-32 minutes
Premier information: First perfromed at Wigmore Hall, London, 2019. By the Calefax Reed Quintet and Signum Quartet.
Instrumentation: Reed quintet and orchestra
Duration: 27:00
Premier information: TBC
About the composer...
Kevin Volans’ work is regularly performed worldwide.
Principal performances in the last years include those at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing, the Berliner Musikfest, Vienna State Opera, the Salzburger Festspiele, the Lincoln Center NY, Dokumenta Kassel, the Pompidou Centre Paris, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Chicago Institute of Fine Arts, the Edinburgh Festival, the Caixa Forum Madrid, the Barbican, South Bank, Wigmore Hall, London and several times in the BBC Proms.
In the last 35 years Kevin Volans has worked with conductors: Michael Tilson Thomas, Marek Janowski, Alan Buribayev, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Thierry Fischer, orchestras: the San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony, Bayerische Rundfunk Symphonieorchester, Royal Flemish Philharmonic; quartets: Kronos, Smith Quartet, Duke Quartet, Arditti Quartet, Signum Quartet; pianists: Barry Douglas, Marc-André Hamelin, Peter Donohoe, Melvyn Tan, Jill Richards; percussionists: Robyn Schulkowsky, Jonny Axelsson, SISU; amongst many others, as well as dance companies like Siobhan Davies, Shobana Jeyasingh, White Oak, Jonathan Burrows and artists: William Kentridge, Juergen Partenheimer, Jose-Manuel Ballester.
He was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, and studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and later with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel in Cologne. He moved to Ireland in 1986 and has been an Irish citizen since 1992. He lives in Co. Cork. After a productive collaboration with the Kronos quartet in the 1980s his work, principally in the field of chamber and orchestral music, has been regularly performed worldwide. The Kronos discs, White Man Sleeps and Pieces of Africa broke all records for string quartet disc sales.
In 1997 the BBC Music Magazine listed him as one of the 50 most important living composers and he was described by the Village Voice (Kyle Gann) as “one of the most original and unpredictable voices on the planet”. In 1999 the South Bank in London hosted a 50th birthday celebration of his work and for his 60th the Wigmore Hall in London organised a “Kevin Volans Day” of concerts.
He has been the featured composer in several European festivals of contemporary music and he was the featured composer in Prague, November 2017.
In 2019 the Wigmore Hall sponsored his 70th birthday concert with 3 world premieres, the South African Society for Research in Music (SASRIM) invited him to give a series of 8 three-hour lectures at the Goethe Institute Johannesburg, along with a birthday concert, and the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome sponsored a ‘Ritratto di Kevin Volans’ with a further 3 world premieres for wind ensemble.
There are some 53 CDs and videos featuring his music currently available.
(Image and biography provided by composer)