Tim Souster
Encyclopedia
Tim Souster was a British composer
best known for his electronic music
output.
, Souster was educated at Bedford Modern School
(from 1952 through 1961) and New College, Oxford
(from 1961 through 1964). His teachers included Bernard Rose
, Sir David Lumsden and Egon Wellesz
. In 1964, he attended summer courses at Darmstadt
taught by Karlheinz Stockhausen
, and took composition lessons with Richard Rodney Bennett
the following year.
Before the end of 1965, Souster was a producer with the BBC Third Programme
, and put on many performances of contemporary music by composers such as Boulez
, Berio
, Barraqué
, Cardew
, Feldman
, Henze
and Stockhausen. After leaving the BBC
in 1967, he began to devote more time to composing and songwriting.
, ring modulator, amplifier
s and tape
. In August of the same year he moved to King's College, Cambridge
and formed a live-electronic group with Roger Smalley
, Andrew Powell
and Robin Thompson called Intermodulation. As well as compositions by Souster and Smalley, the group performed contemporary music by Cardew, Riley
, Rzewski
, Stockhausen and Wolff
.
, and in 1973 he moved to Berlin
where he remained for two years. In 1975, Souster returned to England
, where he lived for the rest of his life, except for a six-month stint in California
) in 1978. In the 1980s and 1990s he wrote music for film and television, including music for the BBC
TV adaptation of The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, including the main theme, which was a re-arrangement of Journey of the Sorcerer by The Eagles. His music for the BBC drama miniseries The Green Man, adapted from the Kingsley Amis
novel and starring Albert Finney
, won the BAFTA
award for best TV music of 1990 (Griffiths 2001). During this period, Souster composed a large amount of concert music
.
He wrote a number of important works for brass and electronics including; Equalisation (1980) for Equale Brass and Echoes (1990) for Besses' o' the Barn Band, both works commissioned by Peter Bassano
. His last completed work was La marche (1993), a brass quintet (Griffiths 2001).
during the opening Dr. Weird (C. Martin Croker
) sequences.
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...
best known for his electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
output.
Background
Born Timothy Andrew James Souster in Bletchley, BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
, Souster was educated at Bedford Modern School
Bedford Modern School
Bedford Modern School is a British co-educational independent school in the Harpur area of Bedford, in the county of Bedfordshire, in England.Bedford Modern comprises a junior school and a senior school...
(from 1952 through 1961) and New College, Oxford
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...
(from 1961 through 1964). His teachers included Bernard Rose
Bernard Rose (musician)
Bernard William George Rose, OBE was variously a student at the Royal College of Music 1933-1935, organist, soldier, and composer...
, Sir David Lumsden and Egon Wellesz
Egon Wellesz
Egon Joseph Wellesz was an Austrian-born British composer, teacher and musicologist, notable particularly in the field of Byzantine music.- Life :...
. In 1964, he attended summer courses at Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
taught by 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"...
, and took composition lessons with Richard Rodney Bennett
Richard Rodney Bennett
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, CBE is an English composer renowned for his film scores and his jazz performance as much as for his challenging concert works...
the following year.
Before the end of 1965, Souster was a producer with the BBC Third Programme
BBC Third Programme
The BBC Third Programme was a national radio network broadcast by the BBC. The network first went on air on 29 September 1946 and became one of the leading cultural and intellectual forces in Britain, playing a crucial role in disseminating the arts...
, and put on many performances of contemporary music by composers such as Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, Berio
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
, Barraqué
Jean Barraqué
Jean-Henri-Alphonse Barraqué was a French composer and writer on music who developed an individual form of serialism which is displayed in a small output of highly complex but passionate works.-Life:...
, Cardew
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
, 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...
, Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
and Stockhausen. After leaving the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1967, he began to devote more time to composing and songwriting.
Foray in electronic music
In the late 1960s Souster began experimenting with electronics. His first acknowledged composition involving electronic techniques was Titus Groan Music (1969) for wind quintetWind quintet
A wind quintet, also sometimes known as a woodwind quintet, is a group of five wind players . The term also applies to a composition for such a group....
, ring modulator, amplifier
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
s and tape
Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...
. In August of the same year he moved to King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
and formed a live-electronic group with Roger Smalley
Roger Smalley
Roger Smalley AM is a British-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley is currently a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in Perth and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney.-Biography:Smalley was born in Swinton, Lancashire,...
, Andrew Powell
Andrew Powell
Andrew Powell - musical composer, arranger and performer - was born 18 April 1949 in London, England of Welsh parents.- Early life :He began taking piano lessons at the age of four and later attended Kings College School, Wimbledon by which time he was also learning the viola, violin and orchestral...
and Robin Thompson called Intermodulation. As well as compositions by Souster and Smalley, the group performed contemporary music by Cardew, Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...
, Stockhausen and Wolff
Christian Wolff (composer)
Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music.-Biography:Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S...
.
Later years
In 1971, Souster became a teaching assistant to Stockhausen in CologneCologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, and in 1973 he moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
where he remained for two years. In 1975, Souster returned to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, where he lived for the rest of his life, except for a six-month stint in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
) in 1978. In the 1980s and 1990s he wrote music for film and television, including music for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
TV adaptation of The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, including the main theme, which was a re-arrangement of Journey of the Sorcerer by The Eagles. His music for the BBC drama miniseries The Green Man, adapted from the Kingsley Amis
Kingsley Amis
Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...
novel and starring Albert Finney
Albert Finney
Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
, won the BAFTA
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
award for best TV music of 1990 (Griffiths 2001). During this period, Souster composed a large amount of concert music
Concert music
Concert music may refer to*Brass band, music performed by brass ensembles.*Classical music, the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times.*Concert band, music performed by...
.
He wrote a number of important works for brass and electronics including; Equalisation (1980) for Equale Brass and Echoes (1990) for Besses' o' the Barn Band, both works commissioned by Peter Bassano
Peter Bassano
Peter Bassano is an English conductor.- Family :His descent from Anthony Bassano the oldest brother of a family of six Venetian musicians brought to England by King Henry VIII is registered at the College of Arms. Three generations of the Bassano family dominated instrumental music at the English...
. His last completed work was La marche (1993), a brass quintet (Griffiths 2001).
Posthumous popularity
After his death, Souster's "Captivity" theme was popularized in the 2000–2011 animated series Aqua Teen Hunger ForceAqua Teen Hunger Force
Aqua Teen Hunger Force , retitled Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 in 2011, is an American animated television series on Cartoon Network late night programing block, Adult Swim, as well as Teletoon's Teletoon at Night block and later G4 Canada's ADd block in Canada...
during the opening Dr. Weird (C. Martin Croker
C. Martin Croker
Clay Martin Croker is an animator and voice actor on various Adult Swim programs. He's best known for voicing the Space Ghost characters Zorak and Moltar on Space Ghost Coast to Coast. It was his idea to have Zorak and Moltar to be Space Ghost's sidekicks-Voice Acting:-External links:...
) sequences.
Sources
- Griffiths, Paul. 2001. "Souster, Tim". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley SadieStanley SadieStanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
and John TyrrellJohn Tyrrell (professor of music)John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
. London: Macmillan Publishers.