• 5 Questions to Joby Burgess

    As ‘genre-busting’ percussionist, whose work has led you to collaborate with musicians and artists of a variety of disciplines, I wonder where and how this collaborative approach began in your musical career? Well the variety has always been there: I grew up listening to my Dad’s record collection of jazz, opera, rock, classical and world…

  • Twitterverse

    The American composer Garrett Schumann kindly mentioned some of my music in his weekly blog post series ‘Mapping my Musical Twitterverse‘. He had this to say:   Steven Berryman is a composer and teacher based in London. From his SoundCloud page, I listened to Echo, for women’s choir and piano, Cypher, for orchestra, and Vera est in loctum, for choir. To…

  • Opera writing

    After seeing so much opera, reading about opera and now learning opera via singing lessons, I have started to work on one with a much welcomed collaborator. Early days, and I eagerly await the libretto to make a start. My main aim is to create something where the music conveys the emotion more than the…

  • Watford Festival 2014

    I had a wonderful  afternoon meeting a few young composers who had entered the Watford Music and Drama Festival Composition Class of 2014. There is always a buzz when you’re about to hear a piece performed for the first time, and it was pleasing to hear live performances of the works for the most part.…

  • Texture: Say what you hear?

    At each of the courses I led over 2013 when I asked the teachers present, “what musical elements do our students find difficult to recognise?”, the first response was always texture. It seems ridiculous that there are only a handful of ‘terms’ to describe texture in the various syllabi of GCSE and A-level music courses;…

  • Reimagined: recomposed?

    Much of my early experiences of composition teaching was exploring the processes of other composers and recently I’ve become fascinated by how other composers/musicians have re-imagined the work of others. In preparing for an article I asked the pianist Christopher O’Riley three questions about his re-imagining of Radiohead. What lead you to re-imagine Radiohead songs…

  • Pro Corda Recomposed

    It was a real pleasure to teach composition on the Senior Course at Pro Corda in August; all the students had a genuine love for chamber music and enjoyed every minute of their time in the beautiful surroundings of Leiston Abbey, Suffolk. I wanted to devise a composition project that would allow the students to…

  • Keyboard Breakdown: LCMF 2013

    Just as I never expected to see a bicycle whizz past me at the Wigmore Hall at the recent Woodwose community opera (Kerry Andrew) I was equally surprised to see a harpsichord in a car park in Peckham. The London Contemporary Music Festival was something I only caught the end of really, attending only the…

  • Woodwose: Wigmore’s first opera

    I never thought I’d see a bicycle whizz by me in the Wigmore Hall but it immediately captured the scene for the opening of Woodwose; the first ever community opera at Wigmore Hall. What makes the project so exciting for me is that the community of 120 local children and adults – joined by the…

  • Opera “too difficult”?

    I read Susan Elkin’s piece for The Independent, ‘Why are educationists so afraid of cultural excellence?’ with much nodding of my head. I am particularly passionate about promoting living artists in my teaching – right from Year 4 upwards – and also ensuring pupils are engaging with as much music as they can, from a…