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Born in Blackburn in 1978, James Weeks read Music at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he was Organ Scholar, before completing a PhD in
Composition at Southampton University, studying with Michael Finnissy. His music is regularly heard across Europe, has been broadcast on German and Dutch radio
and BBC Radio 3, and is promoted by the BMIC's New Voices scheme (www.bmic.co.uk/alias/jamesweeks). Recent works have been completed for Alison Balsom, Kürbis, Bloomsbury Trio, Anton Lukoszevieze, EXAUDI and The Hola, and he has been heard at festivals and halls including Purcell
Room, Bridgewater Hall, City of London Festival, Dartington, Vale of Glamorgan Festival, Soundwaves Brighton, Gaudeamus and Mafra (Portugal). In February 2007 his music was the subject of a portrait concert by Kürbis Ensemble
(London), in which his large-scale instrumental trilogy Schilderkonst was given its première.Other recent major works include The Open Consort (for mixed ensembles based on 17th-century models),
Stacking, Weaving, Building, Joining (for any number of players), Hototogisu (for children's choir and piano duo) and New Day
(for solo piano and ensemble). While the main focus of his recent music has been on solo and small-ensemble works (many of them variously rethinking notions of ensemble playing and working with extreme distillations of musical materials), he has also produced a steady stream of choral and vocal ensemble works and music for solo voice. Of these,
Sint Lumbi, commissioned by the Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, was released on Signum Records in 2005; he has also completed three works for the professional forces of EXAUDI. Current commissions include
Finchley Children's Music Group (for their 50th anniversary season in 2008), Uroboros Ensemble and the oboist Christopher Redgate. James's activities as a conductor are focused on contemporary repertoire, though he
also specialises in early vocal music. He is currently Musical Director of Orlando Chamber Choir (since January 2007), New London Chamber Choir (since November 2007) and Director of EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, the UK's leading
contemporary music vocal ensemble. James founded EXAUDI in 2002 with the soprano Juliet Fraser, and maintains a busy concert schedule with them of major UK and European festivals and venues. The ensemble has also released four
acclaimed CDs on NMC, of Finnissy, Fox, Lutyens and Skempton, and broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3. He has also worked as a guest conductor with Endymion, IXION, I Fagiolini, New Music Players and Birmingham Contemporary Music
Group, with whom he has recorded Howard Skempton's Chamber Concerto for NMC. He is much in demand as a choral animateur and tutor, and has led courses for Lacock and Dartington International Summer School.
James is also active as an organ recitalist, pianist and writer on contemporary music, and broadcasts regularly on early and new music for BBC Radio 3. In December 2006 he gave the first-ever BMIC Cutting Edge organ recital in St
John's, Smith Square, a programme of Fox, Finnissy and Feldman; also in 2006 he co-founded the ensemble Kürbis with the composer Claudia Molitor, dedicated to the performance of contemporary and experimental chamber music. The
ensemble has performed in London, Cambridge (Kettle's Yard) and at Soundwaves Brighton, the last a programme of Skempton, Cardew and Feldman, recorded for BBC Radio 3. mail@exaudi.org.uk |
