Paul Barker is an award-winning composer of many operas, music theatre, theatre, orchestral and concert works, performed at major international festivals, recorded and broadcast on TV. His opera El Gallo (2009) has toured three continents and received over 100 performances by Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes. His concert music reflects his practise that theatre and music are inseparable, for instance his clarinet quintet, In Memoriam: for those who fall in time of war for Joan Lluna and the Brodsky Quartet requires memorising and staging; it has been presented at major festivals in Spain, Holland, Serbia, Mexico and the UK, and been televised. He is currently a Professor of Music Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Biography
Paul Barker’s compositions include orchestral works, choral works, vocal music, chamber music, percussion music, operas, music theatre, dance theatre and theatre productions.
For over a decade his scores have increasingly contained performance instructions which exceed and compliment the aural nature of composition. In addition to his theatre work, his concert work increasingly has become associated with Chamber Music Theatre, which seeks to address the whole concept of live music performance and presentation today.
Sixteen chamber operas have been performed at major international festivals in the UK, Mexico, the US and Europe. El Gallo, an opera without text for six actors and two string quartets (commissioned by Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes in 2009) received its hundredth performance in 2011 and continues to be toured internationally; it has also beeg recorded and released by Quindecim. The Pillow Song (based on Sei Shonagan’s The Pillow Book, for the London International Opera Festival 1988) has been extensively performed and recorded to popular and critical aclaim. Other operas includes La Malinche (in four languages, based on a story from prehispanic Mexico) and The Marriages Between Zones 3, 4 & 5 (after the novel by Doris Lessing, who worked with him on the libretto).
He was born in Cambridge, England and was a boy chorister at Jesus College, later graduating as pianist and composer from the Guildhall School of Music, obtaining a Masters degree from Durham University and a Doctorate from Hertfordshire University, UK. Awards include a Countess of Munster Trust Scholarship, Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust Scholarship, an Arts and Humanities Research Award, the 2005 McElwee Family Fellowship along with many commissions from Arts Council, England and internationally. He was founder and Artistic Director of Optemus (2002-5); Musical Director of Proteus Theatre, Spirals Theatre (1993-8) and European Youth Theatre (1994-98); Composer in Association with London Mozart Players (1994-6); Artistic Director Live Culture (ENO, 1995-6); Founder Chair of Opera & Music Theatre Forum (1993-94); Composer in Residence, West Sussex (1990-1994): Artistic Director of Modern Music Theatre Troupe (1985-94). During July 2005, he was resident composer at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, San Francisco. He is currently Professor of Music Theatre at Central School of Speech & Drama, University of London, UK.
