Alex Taylor (composer)

Alexander Lawther Taylor (born 1988) is a New Zealand composer, poet and writer.

Early life and education

Taylor was born in 1988^[1] and attended Westlake Boys High School.^[2] At the University of Auckland he studied music and English.^[2] In 2011 he received an MMus(Composition) with a folio of compositions for viola and orchestra, piano, clarinet and ensembles.^[3] He was supervised by Eve de Castro-Robinson and John Elmsly.^[4]

Career

Taylor sings and plays several instruments: piano, violin and saxophone.^[5][6] He lists the 20th and 21st century composers and musicians who have influenced him as: Europeans Anton Webern, György Ligeti and Gérard Grisey, Americans Charles Ives, Morton Feldman, Annea Lockwood and Conlon Nancarrow; New Zealanders Anthony Watson, Samuel Holloway and Eve de Castro-Robinson.^[7]

Taylor also writes poetry and specialises in setting words to music.^[2][5] He also composes for small ensembles, orchestras and choirs. In New Zealand the NZSO and ensemble 175 East have performed his music.^[5][6]

In 2012 the National Youth Orchestra premiered his work feel commissioned when he was the orchestra's Composer-in-Residence.^[8] It features viola and cor anglais solos.^[8] The third movement of the work is [inner] which was his winning entry in the NZSO Todd Corporation Young Composers Award in 2011.^[4][8]

Taylor has been commissioned by Westlake Boys High School to write pieces which have been performed by them: two years later (2013) for male voice choir and a summoning (2016) for the concert band.

In 2016 he attended the Darmstadt new-music/avant garde festival where he presented a show The Unauthorised History of New Zealand Music with New Zealand composer Celeste Oram.^[5]

Taylor is currently studying for a PhD at the University of California San Diego under Lei Liang.^[9][10]

Awards and honours

In 2012 Taylor won the SOUNZ Contemporary Award at the APRA New Zealand awards for [inner].^[10] He was the youngest person to receive the award.^[2] He won the Composers Association of New Zealand Trust Fund Award in 2013.^[10] In 2016 Taylor was the recipient of an Arts Foundation New Generation Awards.^[5][10]

Selected works

Poetry

• Seven prose poems^[11]
• For John Cage^[12]
• Sym phony; Industrial popping sounds^[13]
• How to listen to a piece of music^[14]
• Close [t/d]; Park bench; Outside, a cold day^[15]

Articles

• "Strange loops : circular narratives and ambivalence in Samuel Holloway’s “Impossible Songs.”" Canzona, 2009; v.30 n.51, 32–37^[16]
• "A discourse around music." Applause (Wellington, N.Z.), Nov 2016; n.22, 16–17^[17]

Music

• Four landscapes (2008) – for string quartet
• [inner] (2011) – a mini viola concerto
• Study of two pears (2011) – a song cycle for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble
• Burlesques mecaniques (2012) – for piano trio
• Feel (2012) – for full orchestra
• two years later (2013) – for male voice choir
• Horn concerto : hydraulic fracture (2015) – for horn and orchestra
• a summoning (2016) – for concert band
• Four little pieces (2017) – for cello and piano
• Night (2018) text by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), 'Night' from her 1916 collection Sea garden
• Assemblage (2019) – for orchestra with painting machine
• On what grounds (2021) – a suite for violin, cello and theorbo
• Asymptote (2021) – for piano trio
• Obtuse strategies (2023) – for piano