• Reimagined and 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 and musicians have reimagined the work of others. A student of mine introduced me to the work of the pianist Christopher O’Riley, sharing an album of Radiohead songs O’Riley had reimagined.…

  • 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…