Francis Pott
Encyclopedia
Francis Pott, born 25 August 1957, is a British composer, pianist, senior academic and university administrator.
and Magdalene College, Cambridge
, studying composition at the latter with Robin Holloway
and Hugh Wood
while also pursuing piano
studies as a private pupil of Hamish Milne
in London.
For many years John Bennett Lecturer in Music at St Hilda's College, Oxford
, he was appointed administrative Head of Music at London College of Music & Media
(now known again under its original title of London College of Music, as one of three schools within the Faculty of the Arts) at Thames Valley University
in 2001, subsequently becoming Head of both Composition and Research Development in Music, Media and Creative Technologies.
In February 2007 he was appointed to the University's first Chair of Composition. He holds the degrees B.A.[Hons], Mus.B. and M.A. [University of Cambridge] and Ph.D. [Thames Valley University], and a [Composition] Fellowship of London College of Music [F.L.C.M.]. He was a member of Winchester Cathedral Choir
under David Hill
from 1991 until 2001, touring the USA, the Netherlands, Brazil, Germany, France and Norway and also participating in many CD recordings and broadcasts.
Pott has received many national awards as a composer and in 1997 gained First Prize in the second S.S.Prokofiev International Composing Competition in Moscow.
His works have been heard in some twenty countries worldwide (including the UK, the Irish Republic, the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Madeira, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic), broadcast on both sides of the Atlantic and in the Czech Republic, issued extensively on CD and published by four major houses in the UK.
His monumental Organ Symphony 'Christus' was described in the national press in 1992 as ‘one of the most important organ
works of our century’, and again in The Times in 1999 as ‘an astonishingly original composition, compelling in its structural logic and exhilarating in performance: a stupendous achievement’.
In the same year and in the same columns his oratorio
'A Song on the End of the World', named after a Czesław Miłosz poem from Nazi-occupied Warsaw
and written as the last pre-millennial Elgar Commission of the Three Choirs Festival
at Worcester
, was hailed as ‘thrilling, apocalyptic and profoundly affecting’.
Most recently his 89-minute oratorio for tenor solo, double chorus and organ, 'The Cloud of Unknowing', has received international acclaim since its premiere in May 2006 at London Festival of Contemporary Church Music (James Gilchrist, tenor, Jeremy Filsell, organ, and the Vasari Singers under their conductor, Jeremy Backhouse) and CD release of the work by the same artists in September 2007 (Signum Records). In 2006 Pott was a nominated finalist in the National Composer Awards of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA).
Pott's piano
music is extensively championed by the Russian-Canadian virtuoso
Alexander Tselyakov
, and his organ works by the acclaimed British organist Jeremy Filsell
, with the latter of whom Pott has enjoyed a fruitful collaborative friendship extending back 25 years. His own pianistic activity continues at professional (national) level and has recently included a number of four-handed collaborations (on both one and two pianos) with the distinguished British pianist Roger Owens, a former winner of the Royal Overseas League Competition and multiple prizewinner at the Royal College of Music.
Pott's current compositional projects include a concerto for cor anglais and orchestra (the composer's second instrument being the oboe), a violin concerto and a large-scale symphony. Noted hitherto particularly for his sacred choral music, in the oratorios cited earlier he has deployed a conflation of ancient and modern, sacred and secular, prose and poetical texts to form a more explicitly humanist commentary upon the state of the modern world, occasionally using juxtapositions to notably ironic or uncomfortable effect. This preoccupation is extending itself in the current symphony, albeit without text altogether. Disenchanted with the established Church but enduringly interested in the interrogation of faith in an age of scientific rationalism, Pott now describes himself as a reluctant agnostic. His Ph.D. thesis examined these questions to form a commentary on his own sacred choral output and on the oratorios, taking for its title the phrase 'An Awkward Reverence', borrowed from Philip Larkin's poem 'Church Going' (which Pott noted as being presented ambiguously as two words where many today might unthinkingly render it as one). In February 2008 Pott was a keynote speaker alongside James MacMillan and Jonathan Harvey at a conference, 'Contemporary Music and Spirituality', convened at London's South Bank Centre by Dr Robert Sholl (for London College of Music) in association with the Royal Musicological Society.
Pott remains active as a pianist and accompanist, uniting this with both composition and academic research. He has appeared frequently as a two-piano duo recitalist with Jeremy Filsell (internationally acknowledged as a virtuoso on two instruments) and another distinguished British pianist, Roger Owens. Pott is currently writing a major critical study of the works of the Russian composer Nikolai Medtner
, and is the only Medtner scholar to have examined the major manuscript sources in both Ottawa
and Moscow.
Francis Pott lives just outside Winchester with his wife and two children.
www.signumrecords.com
Life
He held open music scholarships at Winchester CollegeWinchester College
Winchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
and Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...
, studying composition at the latter with Robin Holloway
Robin Holloway
Robin Greville Holloway is an English composer.-Early life:From 1952 to 1957, he was a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral...
and Hugh Wood
Hugh Wood
Hugh Wood is a British composer.- Biography :While Wood was brought up in a musical family, it was only after graduating in History from Oxford that he decided to dedicate his energies to composition; and he moved to London in 1954 to study with William Lloyd Webber, Anthony Milner, Iain Hamilton,...
while also pursuing piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
studies as a private pupil of Hamish Milne
Hamish Milne
Hamish Milne is a British pianist known for his advocacy of Nikolai Medtner.Milne studied at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury and then at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he now teaches, and later in Italy under Guido Agosti...
in London.
For many years John Bennett Lecturer in Music at St Hilda's College, Oxford
St Hilda's College, Oxford
St Hilda's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.The college was founded in 1893 as a hall for women, and remained an all-women's college until 2006....
, he was appointed administrative Head of Music at London College of Music & Media
London College of Music
The London College of Music is a music school which is part of the University of West London in England.The LCM was founded in 1887 and existed as an independent music conservatoire based at Great Marlborough Street in central London until 1991...
(now known again under its original title of London College of Music, as one of three schools within the Faculty of the Arts) at Thames Valley University
Thames Valley University
The University of West London is a public university based in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in Ealing and Brentford, London, and Reading, Berkshire....
in 2001, subsequently becoming Head of both Composition and Research Development in Music, Media and Creative Technologies.
In February 2007 he was appointed to the University's first Chair of Composition. He holds the degrees B.A.[Hons], Mus.B. and M.A. [University of Cambridge] and Ph.D. [Thames Valley University], and a [Composition] Fellowship of London College of Music [F.L.C.M.]. He was a member of Winchester Cathedral Choir
Winchester Cathedral Choir
The Winchester Cathedral Choir is an internationally recognized professional choir based at the Winchester Cathedral at Winchester in Hampshire. The choir currently consists of 18 boy choristers and 12 lay clerks and sings eight services weekly in the Cathedral. Sometimes the group augments their...
under David Hill
David Hill
-Politicians:* David B. Hill , Governor of the U.S. state of New York, 1885–1891, U.S. Senator from New York, 1892–1897* David Jayne Hill , politician from New York, United States Assistant Secretary of State, 1898–1903...
from 1991 until 2001, touring the USA, the Netherlands, Brazil, Germany, France and Norway and also participating in many CD recordings and broadcasts.
Pott has received many national awards as a composer and in 1997 gained First Prize in the second S.S.Prokofiev International Composing Competition in Moscow.
His works have been heard in some twenty countries worldwide (including the UK, the Irish Republic, the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Madeira, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic), broadcast on both sides of the Atlantic and in the Czech Republic, issued extensively on CD and published by four major houses in the UK.
His monumental Organ Symphony 'Christus' was described in the national press in 1992 as ‘one of the most important organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
works of our century’, and again in The Times in 1999 as ‘an astonishingly original composition, compelling in its structural logic and exhilarating in performance: a stupendous achievement’.
In the same year and in the same columns his oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
'A Song on the End of the World', named after a Czesław Miłosz poem from Nazi-occupied Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
and written as the last pre-millennial Elgar Commission of the Three Choirs Festival
Three Choirs Festival
The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...
at Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
, was hailed as ‘thrilling, apocalyptic and profoundly affecting’.
Most recently his 89-minute oratorio for tenor solo, double chorus and organ, 'The Cloud of Unknowing', has received international acclaim since its premiere in May 2006 at London Festival of Contemporary Church Music (James Gilchrist, tenor, Jeremy Filsell, organ, and the Vasari Singers under their conductor, Jeremy Backhouse) and CD release of the work by the same artists in September 2007 (Signum Records). In 2006 Pott was a nominated finalist in the National Composer Awards of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA).
Pott's piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
music is extensively championed by the Russian-Canadian virtuoso
Virtuoso
A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...
Alexander Tselyakov
Alexander Tselyakov
Alexander Tselyakov is a Russian classical pianist and educator.Tselyakov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan and made his professional debut as soloist with the Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra in his native Soviet Union at the age of nine. He went on to study at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory...
, and his organ works by the acclaimed British organist Jeremy Filsell
Jeremy Filsell
Jeremy Filsell is an English pianist, organist, and composer.- Biography :Having played piano and organ from a young age, he was a Limpus prize winner for the FRCO examination, which he took when he was 19, and Silver Medallist of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. He studied music at Oxford...
, with the latter of whom Pott has enjoyed a fruitful collaborative friendship extending back 25 years. His own pianistic activity continues at professional (national) level and has recently included a number of four-handed collaborations (on both one and two pianos) with the distinguished British pianist Roger Owens, a former winner of the Royal Overseas League Competition and multiple prizewinner at the Royal College of Music.
Pott's current compositional projects include a concerto for cor anglais and orchestra (the composer's second instrument being the oboe), a violin concerto and a large-scale symphony. Noted hitherto particularly for his sacred choral music, in the oratorios cited earlier he has deployed a conflation of ancient and modern, sacred and secular, prose and poetical texts to form a more explicitly humanist commentary upon the state of the modern world, occasionally using juxtapositions to notably ironic or uncomfortable effect. This preoccupation is extending itself in the current symphony, albeit without text altogether. Disenchanted with the established Church but enduringly interested in the interrogation of faith in an age of scientific rationalism, Pott now describes himself as a reluctant agnostic. His Ph.D. thesis examined these questions to form a commentary on his own sacred choral output and on the oratorios, taking for its title the phrase 'An Awkward Reverence', borrowed from Philip Larkin's poem 'Church Going' (which Pott noted as being presented ambiguously as two words where many today might unthinkingly render it as one). In February 2008 Pott was a keynote speaker alongside James MacMillan and Jonathan Harvey at a conference, 'Contemporary Music and Spirituality', convened at London's South Bank Centre by Dr Robert Sholl (for London College of Music) in association with the Royal Musicological Society.
Pott remains active as a pianist and accompanist, uniting this with both composition and academic research. He has appeared frequently as a two-piano duo recitalist with Jeremy Filsell (internationally acknowledged as a virtuoso on two instruments) and another distinguished British pianist, Roger Owens. Pott is currently writing a major critical study of the works of the Russian composer Nikolai Medtner
Nikolai Medtner
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was a Russian composer and pianist.A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano...
, and is the only Medtner scholar to have examined the major manuscript sources in both Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
and Moscow.
Francis Pott lives just outside Winchester with his wife and two children.
External links
www.signumrecords.com