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Jonathan Cole |
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| JONATHAN COLE Biography Works |
Jonathan Cole (born Welwyn Garden City, 1970) began piano lessons aged 6 and started composing very soon afterwards. As a teenager he was supported by Malcolm Williamson who taught him composition in return for copying and editing his work. He attended Christ's Hospital School where he studied piano, organ, singing and viola before continuing his studies jointly at King's College, London (with teachers David Lumsdaine and Robert Keeley) and the Royal Academy of Music (studying piano with John Bigg and organ with Christopher Bowers-Broadbent). He then continued with postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (with Simon Bainbridge and Robert Saxton) and Royal Holloway, University of London (with John Woolrich, Peter Wiegold and Simon Holt) where he completed a PhD in composition. He has also attended courses at  the Britten/Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies with Magnus Lindberg, Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews as well as the Dartington International Summer School with Louis Andriessen and Lou Harrison. Since winning the Royal Philharmonic Composition Prize in 1999 Cole has built up a continuing relationship with the London Sinfonietta who have premiered three pieces: Ouroboros I, Ouroboros II and Assassin Hair as well as giving performances of Marble Arch 4.30, Penumbra and Testament (British premiere). They have also toured Cole's work in Sweden and Switzerland and have recorded Testament with conductor Oliver Knussen. Both Testament and Ouroboros II were nominated for RPS awards. In 2003 George Benjamin chose Cole to be the recipient of a commission from the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the By George! Festival at the Barbican in London and in 2006 Mark Anthony Turnage programmed Temporale Distante as part of a festival with the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester. Other ensembles and orchestras to programme and commission Cole include the Asko Ensemble, BBC Singers, Chamber Domaine, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Composer's Ensemble, Icebreaker, Italian Radio Orchestra (Turin), London Brass, Nash Ensemble, Ojai Festival Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Soyulla Trio and Tokyo Sinfonietta. He has also written for many solo musicians including Richard Benjafield, Stephen Gutman, Rolf Hind, Robert Keeley, Zoe Martlew, Melinda Maxwell, Sarah Nicholls, Craig Ogden, Jean Rigby and Gabriella Swallow. Conductors of his works include Stefan Asbury, Christopher Austin, Patrick Bailey, George Benjamin, Martyn Brabbins, Yasuaki Itakura, Oliver Knussen, Nicholas Kok, Jason Lai, Brad Lubman, Odaline de la Martinez, Diego Masson, Pascal Rophe, Clark Rundell, Pierre-Andre Valade, Paul Watkins and Peter Wiegold. Cole's works have been featured at many festivals including Aldeburgh, Basle, Bath, Brighton, Britten (Aldeburgh), Cheltenham, Chicago Music Now!, Hoxton, Klara (Brussels), Musica Nova (Strasbourg), Music Past and Present, Music for Today (South Bank), Music Today 21 (Tokyo), Oxford, Ojai (USA), Spitalfields and in 1999, 2000 and 2002 his music was performed as part of the 'State of the Nation' Festival in London's South Bank Centre. Many of his works have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 as well as in Belgium, Japan, Sweden and USA and recordings of his pieces include Caught (Composer's Ensemble on NMC) and Testament (London Sinfonietta). Jonathan Cole is a professor of composition at the Royal College of Music and has taught at King's College, London and the Purcell School. His pieces are published exclusively by G.Ricordi and he has written educational works for the ABRSM and the GSMD. Press Reviews "remarkably well imagined" Andrew Clements - The Guardian (Ouroboros II) “:Jonathan Cole's "Testament": a well-crafted piece full of rich timbral detail” Jeremy Eichler – New York Times "Jonathan Cole's Caught is a 6-minute 'chord study' that consistently beguiles the ear with its nocturnal lyricism and the imaginative textures that Cole conjures from piano, viola, cello, flute, clarinet and vibraphone. The listener is led naturally to what seems the piece's inevitable place of rest." Colin Anderson – classicalsource “Jonathan Cole’s Penumbra presented yet another face of the phenomenon: this was the first outing for a revised version of a piece premiered last year by a pared-down London Symphony Orchestra. Remaking is at work within the fabric of the piece, too, the title denoting both the conceptual inspiration of exploring an image through its reflections, of an object approached ever more nearly through its shadows, and the musical ’shadows’ which effect this formal aspiration as the piece grows backwards and forwards from its central viola solo. With this kernel of intervallic and melodic substance, Cole is able to invent both the rhythmic propulsions of the middle-movement scherzo and the more sombre colours of its outer neighbours. The finale in particular achieves an uncommon eloquence of instrumental speech, with a real sense of meaningful space around the notes as the piece returned to where it began.” John Fallas – classicalsource “Assassin Hair …sets a series of fragmentary poems by the surrealist Georges Bataille, presenting the texts in measured, almost stately lines for the mezzo-soprano soloist. Their extraordinary imagery is balanced with instrumental writing that veers from introspective brooding through expressionist violence to wild, delirious extroversion. “ Andrew Clements – The Guardian “Jonathan Cole's Testament, a short but eloquent tribute to Sue Knussen (the conductor's late wife, to whom composers were her 'lifeblood'), opened in a still, small voice before erupting into rage at her premature loss. Underpinned by notes representing the name Sue, the 12-minute piece ended in reflective mode, its European premiere confirmation of Cole's powers.” Anthony Holden - Observer 11/12/05 “Jonathan Cole's new piece also pits a group of strings against a single instrument, but Scrawling Out makes a feature of this opposition. The oboist Gareth Hulse, seated apart, quickly established himself as the narrative voice, the others acting as his "shadow" - occasionally anticipating his music, but more often taking his lead, in a piece that is far more poised than its title suggests.” Erica Jeal - Guardian 25/3/06
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