__NOTOC__ Dreamtiger was a British contemporary music ensemble specializing in chamber music and Eastern influences in 20th-century music. It was created and directed by composer Douglas Young (born 1947) in 1974Hill (1986), liner notes while he was studying at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

in Cambridge.Young (1980), program notes

Membership

Named after a

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

short story, Dreamtiger performed in variable configurations, from duo to sextet. It was formed around the core membership of pianist, composer and musical director Douglas Young, virtuoso flutist

Kathryn Lukas Kathryn Lukas (Kate Lukas) is a contemporary flute performer and teacher. She is Professor of Music (Flute) at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. She has taught at the Guildhall School of Music and recorded contemporary flute repertoi ...

, pianist Peter Hill (who recorded Messiaen's complete works for piano on Unicorn-Kanchana in 1986), as well as

Arditti Quartet The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974 and led by the British violinist Irvine Arditti. The quartet is a globally recognized promoter of contemporary classical music and has a reputation for having a very wide repertoire. They ...

member and AMM occasional collaborator

Rohan de Saram Deshamanya Frank Rohan de Saram (9 March 1939 – 29 September 2024) was a British and Sri Lankan cellist who focused on contemporary music both as a soloist and as the cellist of the Arditti Quartet from 1979 to 2005. He learned both Western m ...

. Other members between 1974 and 1984 have included soprano Margaret Field,Dreamtiger (1979), program notes

John Mayer John Clayton Mayer ( ; born October 16, 1977) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, but he left for Atlanta in 1997 with fellow guitarist Clay Cook, with whom he formed the short-liv ...

(tampura),

Alexander Bălănescu Alexander Bălănescu () (born 11 June 1954) is a Romanian violinist, and founder of the Balanescu Quartet. Biography Bălănescu was born in Bucharest, and at the age of seven went to the Special School for Music there. His teachers in Romania we ...

(violin), James Wood (percussion), Schaun Tozer (pianist, composer, member of The Lost Jockey with Andrew Poppy), Mark Lockett (pianist, member of the English Gamelan Orchestra), composer Rich Bamford on percussion, as well as Dick Owen and Ian Mitchell.

Repertoire

Dreamtiger premiered several important works by avantgarde composers like

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; , ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde composer, music theorist, architect, performance director and enginee ...

(UK premiere of ''Psappha'', 1975, and ''Kottos'', 1977),

Salvatore Sciarrino Salvatore Sciarrino (born 4 April 1947) is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music. Described as "the best-known and most performed Italian composer" of the present day, his works include ''Quaderno di strada'' (2003) and ''La porta d ...

(European premiere of ''Ai Limiti Della Notte'', for cello, 1979),

Henri Pousseur Henri Léon Marie-Thérèse Pousseur (; 23 June 1929 – 6 March 2009) was a Belgian classical composer, teacher, and music theorist. Biography Pousseur was born in Malmedy and studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 19 ...

(world premiere of ''Racine 19e de 8/4'', for cello, 1976) or Christian Wolff (world premiere of ''Stardust Pieces'', for cello and piano, 1980). Their repertoire included more than 70 different composers, some closely associated with the Ensemble, like

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored d ...

George Crumb George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical ...

John Foulds John Herbert Foulds (; 2 November 1880 – 25 April 1939) was an English cellist and composer of classical music. He was largely self-taught as a composer, and belongs among the figures of the English Musical Renaissance. A successful composer ...

Giacinto Scelsi Giacinto Francesco Maria Scelsi (; 8 January 1905 – 9 August 1988, sometimes cited as 8 August 1988) was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French. He is best known for having composed music based around only one pitch, ...

Luigi Dallapiccola Luigi Dallapiccola (3 February 1904 – 19 February 1975) was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions. Biography Dallapiccola was born in Pisino d'Istria (at the time part of Austria-Hungary, current Pazin, Croati ...

Toru Takemitsu TORU or Toru may refer to: *TORU, spacecraft system *Tōru (given name), Japanese male given name *Toru, Pakistan, village in Mardan District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan *Tõru Tõru is a village in Saaremaa Parish, Saare County in western Es ...

.''Repertoire List''

''Dreamtiger'' and the Orient

Dreamtiger toured extensively in the UK in the early 1980s, as well playing Stuttgart's Hospitalhof, West Germany, in 1982. Their 1980 UK tour, organised by the

Arts Council An arts council is a government or private non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts; mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing arts events. They often operate at arms-length from the government to prevent pol ...

and ''Contemporary Music Network'', met with great audience success and critical appraise, with a program comprising

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...

Colin McPhee Colin Carhart McPhee (March 15, 1900 – January 7, 1964) was a Canadian-American composer and ethnomusicologist. He is best known for being the first Western composer to make a musicological study of Bali, and to develop American gamelan along ...

, Douglas Young, Xenakis and

Toshiro Mayuzumi was a Japanese composer. He was known for his implementation of avant-garde instrumentation alongside traditional Japanese musical techniques. His works drew inspiration from a variety of sources ranging from jazz to Balinese music, and he wa ...

, prefaced by Rohan de Saram's demonstration of traditional Kandyan drums from his native Sri Lanka. Douglas Young mentions two influences to explain his fascination for the Orient:

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...

's compositions ''

The Prince of the Pagodas ''The Prince of the Pagodas'' is a ballet created for The Royal Ballet by choreographer John Cranko with music commissioned from Benjamin Britten. Its premiere took place on 1 January 1957 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, conducted ...

'' (1957) and ''

Curlew River ''Curlew River – A Parable for Church Performance'' (Op. 71) is an English music drama, with music by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by William Plomer. The first of Britten's three 'Parables for Church Performance', the work is based on the ...

'' (1964), the latter inspired by the ''Sumidagawa''

Noh play is a major form of classical Japanese dance-drama that has been performed since the 14th century. It is Japan's oldest major theater art that is still regularly performed today. Noh is often based on tales from traditional literature featuri ...

; and meeting with Sri Lankan cellist de Saram. Dreamtiger explored composers inspired by the Orient like Debussy, Britten, Foulds, Hovhaness, Mayer, McPhee, Messiaen, Scelsi, as well as Eastern composers like Nguyen Thien Dao,

Halim El-Dabh Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh (, ''Ḥalīm ʻAbd al-Masīḥ al-Ḍab''ʻ; 4 March 1921 – 2 September 2017) was an Egyptian-American composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who had a career spanning six decades. He is particu ...

Chou Wen-chung Chou Wen-chung (; July 28, 1923 – October 25, 2019) was a Chinese American composer of contemporary classical music. He emigrated in 1946 to the United States and received his music training at the New England Conservatory and Columbia Univ ...

Younghi Pagh-Paan Younghi Pagh-Paan (born 1945) is a South Korean composer. Life Pagh‑Paan was born in Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea. She studied music at the Seoul National University from 1965 to 1971. In 1974 she received a German Academic Exchang ...

Yūji Takahashi is a composer, pianist, critic, conductor, and author. Biography Yuji Takahashi studied under Roh Ogura and Minao Shibata at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. In 1960, he made his debut as a pianist by performing Bo Nilsson's ''Quantitäten''. ...

Isang Yun Isang Yun, or Yun I-sang (; 17 September 1917 – 3 November 1995), was a Korean-born composer who made his later career in West Germany. Early life and education Yun was born in Sancheong (Sansei), Korea under Japanese rule, Korea in 1917, ...

, Toshiro Mayuzumi or Kazuo Fukushima. The Ensemble apparently ceased activity after 1984, but Douglas Young's fascination with the Orient endured. In 1984, he published an article titled ''Colin McPhee's Music: from West to East'',Young, ''Tempo (New Series)'', pp.11–17 with an analysis of McPhee's ''Balinese Ceremonial Music'', for two pianos (1934). In 1985, Young composed a piano piece inspired by McPhee and Eastern music, simply titled ''Bali''. Dreamtiger's unique LP, ''East-West Encounters'', published 1982, is based on their 1980 repertoire and is a collection of Eastern-influenced works by 20th-century composers, including Colin McPhee's ''Balinese Ceremonial Music'' (1934), Olivier Messiaen's '' Cantéyodjayâ'' (1948), George Crumb's ''Vox Balaenae'' (1971) and Douglas Young's ''Trajet/Inter/Lignes'' (1981).Young (1982), liner notes

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * * {{Authority control Contemporary classical music ensembles British experimental musical groups Musical groups established in 1975 1975 establishments in the United Kingdom