Kevin Volans
Encyclopedia
Kevin Volans is a composer
associated with the post-minimalist movement in contemporary composition. He was born in Pietermaritzburg
, South Africa
on July 6, 1949, and even though he has spent most of his life outside his native country, is the best known South African composer active today.
In 1972, he graduated from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg
with a Bachelor of Music degree, followed by post-graduate education at the University of Aberdeen
. From 1973 to 1981 he lived in Cologne, where he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen
at the Musikhochschule. During this period he served as Stockhausen's teaching assistant in 1975–76 (Taylor 2001).
During this period of time, along with his contemporaries Walter Zimmermann
and Clarence Barlow
, he became associated with the musical movement called the "New Simplicity
" that would later influence post-minimalist composition. This was a reaction against the complexities and hyperbole of the new music scene in Germany in the mid-1970s, and it proved to be highly influential.
After conducting several field recording trips in 1979, Volans began writing pieces based upon African compositional techniques. This characteristic made him one of the most distinctive composers on the European new music circuit at the time. Some of his works such as Matepe and the first version of White Man Sleeps utilize early music
instruments including harpsichord
(tuned in African tuning) and viola da gamba
.
The first of his compositions to reach a wide audience was a new version of White Man Sleeps, made at the suggestion of the Kronos Quartet
in 1985. This version reorders the movements of the original version, and uses conventional western tuning. The Kronos Quartet
's album of that name (which however features only three of Volans's five movements) became a best-seller, and White Man Sleeps has been taken up by many choreographers, notably Siobhan Davies
. Volans followed it up with Hunting: Gathering, his second quartet, written for Kronos in 1987.
Volans was Composer-in Residence at Queen's University Belfast from 1986-89. Thereafter he has made his home in the Republic of Ireland
and in 1994 became an Irish citizen. His notable students include Justinian Tamusuza
.
The works of the late 1980s and early 1990s show a move away from the direct influence of African music towards a highly personal sort of minimalism. Part of this may have been the influence of the American composer Morton Feldman
, who was a close friend; but the language of the compositions this era, including the orchestral work One Hundred Frames (1990), the striking two-piano work Cicada (1994), or the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1995) are identifiably his own. Central among them is an opera, The Man with Footsoles of Wind, premiered in London in 1993, and based on an idea by his friend, the English novelist Bruce Chatwin
. The work of visual artists such as Philip Guston
, Jasper Johns
and James Turrell
figure among Volans's influences in these years.
A close working relationship with the London-based Duke Quartet
led Volans to write more for the string quartet medium, including the fifth quartet, Dancers on a Plane (1994) and the sixth quartet (2000). For much of the late 1990s he concentrated on dance collaborations with such choreographers as Jonathan Burrows
and Siobhan Davies
. Since 2000, however, he has devoted most of his energy to orchestral works; since his fine Cello Concerto of 1997 he has written a Concerto for Double Orchestra, a Trio Concerto which received its UK premier as part of the Soundwaves Festival 2007, and a second Piano Concerto, subtitled "Atlantic Crossing", which was premiered by Marc-André Hamelin
in November 2006.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
associated with the post-minimalist movement in contemporary composition. He was born in Pietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg is the capital and second largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1838, and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its "purist" Zulu name is umGungundlovu, and this is the name used for the district municipality...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
on July 6, 1949, and even though he has spent most of his life outside his native country, is the best known South African composer active today.
In 1972, he graduated from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
with a Bachelor of Music degree, followed by post-graduate education at the University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...
. From 1973 to 1981 he lived in Cologne, where he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
at the Musikhochschule. During this period he served as Stockhausen's teaching assistant in 1975–76 (Taylor 2001).
During this period of time, along with his contemporaries Walter Zimmermann
Walter Zimmermann
Walter Zimmermann is a German composer.Zimmermann studied composition in Germany with Werner Heider and Mauricio Kagel, the theory of musical intelligence at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht , and computer music at Colgate University in New York.Zimmerman's works are infused by a personal...
and Clarence Barlow
Clarence Barlow
Clarence Barlow is a composer of classical and electroacoustic works.-Biography:Barlow was born in Calcutta, a member of the anglophone minority, of British and Portuguese descent...
, he became associated with the musical movement called the "New Simplicity
New Simplicity
New Simplicity was a stylistic tendency amongst some of the younger generation of German composers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, reacting against not only the European avant garde of the 1950s and 1960s, but also against the broader tendency toward objectivity found from the beginning of the...
" that would later influence post-minimalist composition. This was a reaction against the complexities and hyperbole of the new music scene in Germany in the mid-1970s, and it proved to be highly influential.
After conducting several field recording trips in 1979, Volans began writing pieces based upon African compositional techniques. This characteristic made him one of the most distinctive composers on the European new music circuit at the time. Some of his works such as Matepe and the first version of White Man Sleeps utilize early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
instruments including harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
(tuned in African tuning) and viola da gamba
Viol
The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
.
The first of his compositions to reach a wide audience was a new version of White Man Sleeps, made at the suggestion of the Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...
in 1985. This version reorders the movements of the original version, and uses conventional western tuning. The Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...
's album of that name (which however features only three of Volans's five movements) became a best-seller, and White Man Sleeps has been taken up by many choreographers, notably Siobhan Davies
Siobhan Davies
Siobhan Davies CBE DLitt was a dancer with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre during the 1970s, then becoming one of its leading choreographers before founding her own company — the Siobhan Davies Dance Company — in 1988.First training in art, Davies was one of the first year's intake of...
. Volans followed it up with Hunting: Gathering, his second quartet, written for Kronos in 1987.
Volans was Composer-in Residence at Queen's University Belfast from 1986-89. Thereafter he has made his home in the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
and in 1994 became an Irish citizen. His notable students include Justinian Tamusuza
Justinian Tamusuza
Justinian Tamusuza is a Ugandan composer of contemporary classical music.His music combines elements of traditional Ugandan music and Western music. He is best known for his first string quartet, which was included by the Kronos Quartet on their 1992 CD Pieces of Africa, which contains music by...
.
The works of the late 1980s and early 1990s show a move away from the direct influence of African music towards a highly personal sort of minimalism. Part of this may have been the influence of the American composer Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
, who was a close friend; but the language of the compositions this era, including the orchestral work One Hundred Frames (1990), the striking two-piano work Cicada (1994), or the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1995) are identifiably his own. Central among them is an opera, The Man with Footsoles of Wind, premiered in London in 1993, and based on an idea by his friend, the English novelist Bruce Chatwin
Bruce Chatwin
Charles Bruce Chatwin was an English novelist and travel writer. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill...
. The work of visual artists such as Philip Guston
Philip Guston
Philip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
, Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
and James Turrell
James Turrell
James Turrell is an American artist primarily concerned with light and space. Turrell was a MacArthur Fellow in 1984. He is represented by The Pace Gallery in New York...
figure among Volans's influences in these years.
A close working relationship with the London-based Duke Quartet
Duke Quartet
The Duke Quartet is a contemporary string quartet based in Europe. Its members are Louisa Fuller , Rick Koster , John Metcalfe , and Ivan McCready ....
led Volans to write more for the string quartet medium, including the fifth quartet, Dancers on a Plane (1994) and the sixth quartet (2000). For much of the late 1990s he concentrated on dance collaborations with such choreographers as Jonathan Burrows
Jonathan Burrows
Jonathan Burrows is one of the UK’s leading choreographers. He performs around the world, with 43 international tour dates in 2007.`He started his career as a soloist with The Royal Ballet in London, but formed the Jonathan Burrows Group in 1988 to present his own work.The company travelled widely...
and Siobhan Davies
Siobhan Davies
Siobhan Davies CBE DLitt was a dancer with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre during the 1970s, then becoming one of its leading choreographers before founding her own company — the Siobhan Davies Dance Company — in 1988.First training in art, Davies was one of the first year's intake of...
. Since 2000, however, he has devoted most of his energy to orchestral works; since his fine Cello Concerto of 1997 he has written a Concerto for Double Orchestra, a Trio Concerto which received its UK premier as part of the Soundwaves Festival 2007, and a second Piano Concerto, subtitled "Atlantic Crossing", which was premiered by Marc-André Hamelin
Marc-André Hamelin
Marc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, is a French Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer.Born in Montreal, Quebec, Marc-André Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five. His father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a pianist, introduced him to the works of Alkan, Godowsky, and Sorabji when he was...
in November 2006.
Publications
- Volans, Kevin. 1971. "The Klavierstücke: Stockhausen’s Microcosm". Unpublished BMus Essay: University of the Witwatersrand.
- Volans, Kevin. [n.d.1978]. "Conversation with Walter ZimmermannWalter ZimmermannWalter Zimmermann is a German composer.Zimmermann studied composition in Germany with Werner Heider and Mauricio Kagel, the theory of musical intelligence at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht , and computer music at Colgate University in New York.Zimmerman's works are infused by a personal...
". In Feedback Papers Reprint 1-16, 1971-1978, [ed. Johannes Fritsch]. Cologne: Feedback Studio, 338-341. - Volans, Kevin. [n.d.1978]. "Interview with John McGuireJohn McGuire (composer)John McGuire is an American composer, pianist, organist, and music editor.-Biography:John McGuire initially studied composition with Robert Gross at Occidental College, where he earned a BA in 1964. He received a succession of three Alfred E...
". Feedback Papers Reprint 1-16, 1971-1978. Cologne: Feedback Studio, 347-349. - Volans, Kevin. [n.d.1978]. "Monkey Music 2: Paraphrase". Feedback Papers Reprint 1-16, 1971-1978. Cologne: Feedback Studio, 354-355.
- Volans, Kevin. [n.d.1978]. "Understanding Stockhausen". Feedback Papers Reprint 1-16, 1971-1978. Cologne: Feedback Studio, 407-409.
- Volans, Kevin and Johannes Fritsch. [n.d.1978]. "Interview with Pauline OliverosPauline OliverosPauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
". Feedback Papers Reprint 1-16, 1971-1978. Cologne: Feedback Studio, 352-353. - Volans, Kevin. 1985. Summer Gardeners: Conversations with Composers. Durban: Newer Music Edition.
- Volans, Kevin. 1986. "A New Note". Leadership [Cape Town], March, 79-82.
- Volans, Kevin. 1989. "Dancing in the Dark". New Observations, May, 67, 4-5.
- Volans, Kevin. 1994. "On Top Form: Minimalist John PawsonJohn PawsonJohn Pawson is a British designer associated with the minimalist aesthetic.-Biography:Pawson studied at Eton College and the Architectural Association School of Architecture and is married to Catherine and has two children, Caius and Benedict.-Selected projects:London's Cannelle Cake Shop, several...
’s Redesign of a Grand Dublin Residence … ". Image, October, 32-34 and 38-39. - Volans, Kevin. "A Dialogue Between Collaborators". Dance Theatre Journal 12(4), 14-15.
- Volans, Kevin. 2001/2. "White Man Sleeps: Composer’s Statement". NewMusicSA: Bulletin of the International Society for Contemporary Music - South African Section, First Issue, 5-7.
- Volans, Kevin. 2008. "Inaudible Music". In Discontinuity, Paradox & Precision. Birmingham: Ikon GalleryIkon GalleryThe Ikon Gallery is an English gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace, Birmingham. It is housed in the Grade II listed, neo-gothic former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henry Chamberlain in 1877. The gallery's current director is Jonathan Watkins.Ikon was set up to...
. - Volans, Kevin. and Hilary Bracefield. 1987. "A Constant State of Surprise: Gerald Barry and The Intelligence Park". Contact 31, 9-11.