PAUL KEENAN

In 1977, his Concerto for Groups of Instruments won the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize and in 1978 his Music for Wood and Strings won the silver medal of The Worshipful Company of Musicians. However, the most important work of this period is The Ruin, set to part of the Anglo-Saxon poem. The Ruin is a 'double time refraction' evoking the strong, though not specific, sense of place which permeates his later composition... Paul's fascination with nature underpins all his music, and his tireless quest for scrupulous honesty in his writing led him to investigate a range of scientific phenomena. The beating wings of swans in flight were woven into the rhythms of Palimpsest; the pitches rendered from their calls. Nonetheless, it was the mathematics of a rainbow which developed into Paul's groundbreaking research into trombone 'lip' multiphonics, and the musical ideas thus generated were, like the rainbow, to have no end! A Field of Scarecrows was consequently based on the multiphonics..

Primary location: United Kingdom