Deborah Pritchard is a British composer. She is known for her concert works, a compositional approach informed by her synaesthesia, and her work in response to

visual artists The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and texti ...

, most notably

Maggi Hambling Margaret J. Hambling (born 23 October 1945) is a British artist. Though principally a painter, her best-known public works are the sculptures '' A Conversation with Oscar Wilde'' and '' A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft'' in London, and the ...

, Hugie O'Donoghue and

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...

. She also paints music in the form of visualisations and music maps. The

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

premiered her large orchestral piece ''The Angel Standing in the Sun'' at LSO St Lukes in 2015, her violin concerto ''Calandra'' was premiered by Jennifer Pike and the

BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The ...

at the Barbican, London in 2022 and ''Radiance'' for solo cello, responding to ''The Peace Window'' by Marc Chagall at the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

, was premiere by

Natalie Clein Natalie Clein (born Poole, Dorset) is a British classical cellist. Her mother is a professional violinist. Her sister is the actress Louisa Clein. Early life and education Clein started playing the cello at the age of six, and attended Tal ...

at the Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival in 2022. She won a British Composer Award for her solo violin piece ''Inside Colour'' in 2017,

Education

Pritchard was awarded an undergraduate degree and postgraduate diploma from the

Guildhall School of Music and Drama The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a music school, music and drama school located in the City of London, England. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz al ...

where she studied as both composer and

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

ist. She then completed a MMus degree in composition at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...

with Simon Bainbridge, subsequently holding the position of Manson Fellow in Composition. She was awarded her

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from

Worcester College, Oxford Worcester College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms was ad ...

where she studied with Robert Saxton, now holding Associate Membership of The Faculty of Music, Oxford. She was made Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2019 and held the tenure of visiting research fellow at

Keble College, Oxford Keble College () is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University Museum a ...

, from 2022 to 2023.

Career

Her work received early attention following the inclusion of her piece ''Chanctonbury Ring'' on the album "The Hoxton Thirteen", released by

NMC Recordings NMC Recordings is a British recording label and a charity which specialises in recording works by living composers from the British Isles. History The composer Colin Matthews founded NMC in 1989, with financial assistance from the Gustav Hols ...

in 2001. Her music has since been released by labels including Signum Records, Nimbus,

Linn Records Linn Records is a Glasgow-based record label which specialises in classical music, jazz and Scottish music. It is part of Linn Products. History While Linn engineers were testing their flagship product, the Sondek LP12 turntable, they became fr ...

BIS Records BIS Records is a record label founded in 1973 by Robert von Bahr. It is located in Åkersberga, Sweden. BIS focuses on classical music, both contemporary and early, especially works that are not already well represented by existing recording ...

Hyperion Records Hyperion Records is a British classical music record label. It was independent until February 2023, when it was acquired by the Universal Music Group. Under Universal, Hyperion is one of the three main classical record labels, alongside Decca a ...

and Orchid Classics. Her music has been premiered, performed and broadcast worldwide by ensembles including the

London Sinfonietta The London Sinfonietta is an English contemporary chamber music, chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble has headquarters at Kings Place and is Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. Since its inaugural concert ...

, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Northern Sinfonia,

Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI Classics, EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Rich ...

Manchester Camerata The Manchester Camerata is a British chamber orchestra based in Manchester, England. A sub-group from the orchestra, the Manchester Camerata Ensemble, specialises in chamber music performances. The orchestra's primary concert venue is The Bridg ...

, English String Orchestra, Orchestra of the Swan, Chamber Domaine, the Composers Ensemble, BBC Singers, Choir of New College, Oxford, Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Gesualdo Six and the Marian Consort. Recent works includes her large work for choir and symphony orchestra ''Kandinsky Songs'' premiered at the Forbidden City Concert Hall, Beijing, China in 2024; her new song ''Everyone Sang'' for Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton, premiered at the

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

in 2023 and ''Chagall's Light'' for solo violin and orchestra, inspired by the

windows of All Saints Church, Tudeley, premiered by Greta Multu and Chamber Domain, conducted by Thomas Kemp in 2023. She was composer in residence at the 2016 Lichfield Festival and the 2022 Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival where

premiered her new work for solo cello.

Synaesthesia

Pritchard experiences synaesthesia, specifically perceiving sound as colour, light and darkness. In her own words;

"Ever since I was a child, I’ve been aware that some
harmonies In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...
seemed warm whilst others appeared cold. The relationship between colours and intervals seemed so natural to me that I didn’t question it ... When I engage with colour, light and darkness in my work, I become aware of a broader emotional content and hope to illuminate some kind of beauty to the listener."

Pritchard frequently paints visualisations of her musical works, and has also been commissioned by the

to paint music maps of works by other composers (such as

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde music, avant-garde composers in the latter half of the ...

Unsuk Chin Unsuk Chin ( ; born July 14, 1961) is a South Korean composer of contemporary classical music, who is based in Berlin, Germany. Chin was a self-taught pianist from a young age and studied composition at Seoul National University as well as with ...

and

Thomas Adès Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès (born 1 March 1971) is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: ''The Tempest (opera), The T ...

) for inclusion in concert programme notes. Her visualisations and music maps were exhibited at the

's ''Amazing Women of the Academy'' exhibition from 2018 to 2019. In 2020 she was commissioned a graphic score ''Colour Circle'' by the

to launch their ''Postcard Pieces'' project over lockdown, inspired by

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

's book '' Concerning the Spiritual in Art''.

Works inspired by visual art

Pritchard has written several pieces inspired by

including ''Radiance'' for solo cello responding to ''The Peace Window'' at the

premiered by

at the Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival in 2022, and ''Chagall's Light'' for solo violin and orchestra, written after the series of windows at All Saints Church, Tudeley, premiered by Greta Mutlu and Chamber Domaine at the 2023 Music@Malling Festival in Kent. She has also written a number of pieces after the contemporary artist

, working in collaboration at her studio in

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. The first of these was the

violin concerto A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin (occasionally, two or more violins) and instrumental ensemble (customarily orchestra). Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up thro ...

''Wall of Water'' (2014), which was premiered by violinist Harriet Mackenzie and the English String Orchestra during the

Frieze Art Fair Frieze Art Fair is an annual contemporary art, contemporary art festival, art fair first held in 2003 in London's Regent's Park. Developed by the founders of the contemporary art magazine ''Frieze (magazine), Frieze'', the fair has since expan ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Images of Hambling's series of

seascape A seascape is a photograph, painting, or other work of art which depicts the sea, in other words an example of marine art. The word originated as a formation from landscape, which was first used for images of land in art. By a similar de ...

paintings, also titled ''Wall of Water'', were projected during the performance. Subsequent pieces written in response to Hambling's work were ''Edge'', a double concerto for violin, harp and string orchestra (after Hambling's paintings on

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

), premiered by Harriet Mackenzie,

Catrin Finch Catrin Ana Finch is a Welsh people, Welsh harpist, arranger and composer. She was the Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales from 2000 to 2004 and is visiting professor at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and the Royal Academy of Music ...

and the Aldeburgh Festival Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Berman at the 2017

Aldeburgh Festival The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk and is centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall. History of the Aldeburgh Festi ...

and a solo violin piece for Harriet Mackenzie called ''March 2020'' in response to Hambling's painting of the same name, with both painting and music created over lockdown. Other artists on whose work Pritchard has drawn on include Hughie O'Donoghue, George Shaw, Yinka Shonibare, Steinunn Thorarinsdottir, J.M.W. Turner and

James Turrell James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. He is considered the "master of light" often creating art installations that mix natural light with artificial color through openings ...

Selected works

* ''Light'' (2023) for solo violin * ''Calandra'' (2022) for solo violin and string orchestra * ''The Light of the World'' (2022) for solo violin and SATB div. choir * ''Couleurs Celeste'' (2022) for violin and cello * ''The World'' song cycle (2022) for soprano and piano * ''Illumination'' (2022) for string orchestra * ''Peace'' (2021) for soprano and string quartet * ''March 2020'' (2020) for solo violin, in response to the painting by

* ''Green Renewed'' (2020) for solo cello * ''Colour Circle'' (2020) graphic score for any instrument * ''Trophies of Peace'' (2020) for choir, in response to ''Trophies'' by Steinunn Thorarinsdottir * ''New College Service -

Magnificat The Magnificat (Latin for "y soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary or Canticle of Mary, and in the Byzantine Rite as the Ode of the Theotokos (). Its Western name derives from the incipit of its Latin text. This ...

and

Nunc Dimittis The Nunc dimittis (), also known as the Song of Simeon or the Canticle of Simeon, is a canticle taken from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, verses 29 to 32. Its Latin name comes from its incipit, the opening words, of the Vulgate transl ...

'' (2020) for choir * ''The Heavens Declare'' (2019) for choir * ''For Mother Earth'' (revised 2019) for string orchestra * ''River Above'' (2018) for solo saxophone * ''Storm Song'' (2017) for soprano, piano and cello * ''Edge'' (2017) for violin, harp and string orchestra, in response to the paintings by Maggi Hambling * ''Inside Colour'' (2016) for solo violin * ''Seven Halts on the Somme'' (2016) for trumpet, harp and string orchestra, in response to paintings by Hughie O'Donoghue * ''From Night'' (2015) for solo cello * ''Of The Heart'' (2015) for string orchestra * ''The Angel Standing in the Sun'' (2015) for orchestra, in response to artwork by J.M.W. Turner * ''Benedicite'' (2014) for choir and trumpet= * ''From Night'' (2014) for solo cello * ''I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto The Hills'' (2014) for choir * ''Wall of Water'' (2014) for violin and string orchestra * ''Skyspace'' (2012) for solo piccolo trumpet and string orchestra, in response to artwork by James Turrell. * ''Lord's Prayer'' (2009) for choir * ''Chanctonbury Ring'' (2000) for

Pierrot Ensemble A Pierrot ensemble is a musical ensemble comprising flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano. This ensemble is named after 20th-century composer Arnold Schoenberg’s seminal work '' Pierrot lunaire'', which includes the quintet of instruments a ...

* ''Four Short Movements'' (2000) for cello and piano

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pritchard, Deborah 1977 births Living people British women classical composers British musicologists British women musicologists 21st-century British composers 21st-century British women composers