Graham Waterhouse, 2011

Graham Waterhouse (born 2 November 1962) is an English composer and a cellist. He is known for chamber music and for unusual scoring, such as Piccolo Quintet, Bright Angel for three bassoons and contrabassoon, Chieftain's Salute for Great Highland Bagpipe and string orchestra, and works for speaking voice and cello, such as Der Handschuh. For his own instrument, he composed a cello concerto and Three Pieces for Solo Cello.

Career [link]

Graham Waterhouse was born in London, the son of noted bassoonist/musicologist William Waterhouse. He studied music at the University of Cambridge (composition with Hugh Wood and Robin Holloway), and in Germany at the Folkwang Hochschule (cello with Young-Chang Cho) and Hochschule für Musik Köln (cello, with Maria Kliegel, conducting and piano). He has lived in Munich since 1992.

He has received commissions by the International Double Reed Society (IDRS), the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Munich Biennale, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional del Estado de Mexico, and the Park Lane Group (London), among others. His compositions have earned prizes at competitions of Münchener Tonkünstlerverband (1996) and of Via Nova in Weimar (2000).^[1] His string quartet Chinese Whispers was awarded the "BCMS Composition Prize" of the Birmingham Chamber Music Society in 2011.

He has performed as the soloist of his Cello Concerto op. 27 in Mexico City (1995), Nizhny Novgorod, Weimar, Baden-Baden, St. Martin, Idstein (version for chamber orchestra, 2005), and Cambridge (2008).

In 2001 he was the composer in residence of Solisten der Kammerphilharmonie Berlin, in 2006 he was artiste en residence in Albertville, France, and in 2008 he was Musician By-Fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge.

He has worked with Ensemble Modern and participated in the concert tour 2001 of the Ensemble Modern Orchestra under Pierre Boulez.^[2] He has also performed with the ensembles musikFabrik and Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin.

As a composer and a performer, he is mostly dedicated to chamber music, and he has co-founded several chamber ensembles, including the Vuillaume-Cello-Ensemble playing instruments built by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. He established in 1998 a regular chamber music concert series at Gasteig Munich, programming contemporary works alongside works from the classical repertory.^[3] Players for his chamber music concerts have included members of the Münchner Philharmoniker, such as bassoonist Lyndon Watts. Waterhouse has collaborated with the composers Jens Josef (flute) and Rudi Spring (piano). They appeared together in a trio concert at the Gasteig, performing Martinů's trio, the premiere of the flute version of Gestural Variations, and a Christmas carol by each composer, In dulci jubilo set by Waterhouse.^[4] The song Im Gebirg (The Mountain) on a poem of Hans Krieger for mezzo-soprano, alto flute, cello and piano,^[5] was premiered at the Gasteig in 2010 by Martina Koppelstetter, Jens Josef, the composer and Christopher White.^[6] In a concert The Proud Bassoon in Wigmore Hall, celebrating his father on 16 April 2011, he performed as a cellist, and two works he had written in memory of his father, Epitaphium and Bright Angel, received their premiere in the UK.^[7][8] In a concert concluding the Gasteig's Liszt Festival to honour the 200th birthday of Franz Liszt, his chamber music scored for piano solo up to piano and string quartet appeared in the context of pieces in similar settings by Liszt, with soloist Valentina Babor.^[9] In 2011, he composed a Christmas cantata on a text by Krieger.^[10]

His compositions reflect the individual capacity and character of players and instruments from piccolo to contrabassoon, even unusual ones such as the heckelphone or didgeridoo. He scored Chieftain's Salute for Great Highland Bagpipe and string orchestra, Hale Bopp, inspired by Comet Hale-Bopp, for string orchestra with boy soprano, and The Akond of Swat (after a nonsense-poem by Edward Lear) for a tenor bassoon made to order for the performer Richard Moore, bassoon, and piano.^[11]

He also wrote several compositions for cello and speaking voice, based on literature as diverse as limerick (Vezza), ballad (Der Handschuh) and drama (Das Hexen-Einmaleins), which he plays and recites himself.

He has lectured on contemporary music at the yearly Komponisten-Colloquium of the University of Oldenburg, initiated by Violeta Dinescu.^[12]

Several of his pieces have been composed for the competition Jugend musiziert and performed at the prize winners' concerts.

The first publisher of his works was the Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag, beginning with Aztec Ceremonies and Three Pieces for Solo Cello in 1996. His music appeared also with Zimmermann and Robert Lienau in Frankfurt, Heinrichshofen in Wilhelmshaven, and others.

His music has been recorded, notably on Portrait (2001) with works for piano, clarinet and cello, and Portrait 2 (2004) with music for string orchestra, played by the English Chamber Orchestra, and for wind ensemble, played by Endymion.^[13]

Selected works [link]

• Variations on a Theme by Pachelbel op. 6 for organ
• Scherzino op. 24/2 for piano, published 2006 in Piano Album^[14]
• Hungarian Polyphony op. 25 for string quartet
• Piccolo Quintet op. 26
• Cello Concerto op. 27
• Three Pieces for Solo Cello op. 28, dedicated to Siegfried Palm
• Mouvements d’Harmonie op. 29 for wind ensemble, dedicated to William Waterhouse
• Nonet op. 30 for wind quintet, string trio and double bass
• Chieftain's Salute op. 34a for Great Highland Bagpipe and string orchestra
• Four Epigraphs after Escher op. 35 for heckelphone, viola and piano – after drawings by M. C. Escher
• Vezza, Limerick for cello and speaking voice, Whether the weather be hot – as a German would pronounce it
• Celtic Voices and Hale Bopp op. 36 for string orchestra with obbligato treble voice
• Aztec Ceremonies op. 37 for contrabassoon and piano, premiered IDRS 1995, Rotterdam
• Kreuzverhör for flute, oboe and string trio, premiered at the Munich Biennale 1998
• Ode to an Australian Forebear op. 38 for flute, marimba, cello and didgeridoo
• Gestural Variations op. 43 for oboe, bassoon and piano, prize-winner at Via Nova in Weimar (2000)^[1]
• Diplo-Diversions op. 44 for bassoon and piano, premiered at the IDRS Congress 1998^[15]
• Hexenreigen op. 45 for bassoon quartet
• Hymnus op. 49 for wind ensemble
• Bei Nacht (At Night) op. 50 for piano trio, inspired by a painting of Kandinsky, Nacht
• Sinfonietta op. 54 for string orchestra
• Threnody for cello solo, published as Music against Terrorism and Violence^[16]
• Bassoon Quintet, premiered in Munich 2003, revised 2011
• Sechs späteste Lieder after Hölderlin for mezzo-soprano and cello
• Sicilian Air for flute and piano
• Der Handschuh (The Glove), the ballad by Friedrich Schiller, for cello and speaking voice
• Das Hexen-Einmaleins (The Witches' One-Times-One), after Goethe (Faust Part One, Witch's Kitchen), for cello and speaking voice ^[17]
• Belsatzar after Heine for speaking voice and cello
• Bright Angel for three bassoons and contrabassoon, premiered IDRS 2008, Provo, Utah, referring to the Bright Angel Trail
• Phoenix Arising for bassoon and piano, Tribute to William Waterhouse, premiered in London 2009
• Epitaphium In Memoriam W.R.W. for string trio, premiered in Munich 2009
• The Akond of Swat (after a poem by Edward Lear) for tenor bassoon, bassoon and piano, premiered IDRS 2009, Birmingham^[11]
• Canto Notturno for piano trio, premiered in Munich 2009
• Chinese Whispers for string quartet, premiered in Preston 2010
• Im Gebirg on a poem of Hans Krieger for alto, alto flute, cello and piano, premiered in Munich 2010
• Der Werwolf and The Banshee on a poem of Christian Morgenstern for speaking voice and cello
• Zeichenstaub for string trio, premiered in Arnstadt 2010
• Maśniaki, Recollections from the Tatra Mountains for Solo Violin, premiered in Munich 2011
• Concerto da camera for cello and ensemble, premiered in Munich 2011
• Rhapsodie Macabre for piano and string quartet, premiered in Munich 2011
• Der Anfang einer neuen Zeit (The Beginning of a New Time), Christmas cantata on a text of Hans Krieger, premiered in Essen 2011

Discography [link]

• 2001 Graham Waterhouse Portrait, chamber music, Cybele^[18][19]
• 2004 Graham Waterhouse Portrait 2, music for string orchestra and wind ensemble, Meridian Records^[20]

single works:

• 2000 Bassoon With a View, Innova Recordings (Aztec Ceremonies)
• 2001 Benchmarks Vol. 6 – Folkestone and Hythe, Kent (Variations on a Theme by Pachelbel)
• 2007 concerto piccolo, Archiv Music (Piccolo Quintet)

References [link]

External links [link]

• Graham Waterhouse website
• Graham Waterhouse on The Living Composers Project
• Literature by and about Graham Waterhouse in the German National Library catalogue
• Graham Waterhouse at Allmusic
• Entries for Graham Waterhouse on WorldCat