Paul Barker’s compositions include orchestral
works, choral works, vocal music, chamber music, percussion music, operas, music theatre, dance theatre and theatre productions.
Sixteen chamber operas
– many of them recorded and televised – have been performed at major international festivals in the UK and Mexico.
El Gallo, an opera without text for six actors and two string quartets (commissioned by Teatro de Ciertos
Habitantes in 2009) will received its hundreth performance in 2011; it has also being 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. 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).
Orchestral works include a Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, (also
featuring a solo part for giant bass drum) commissioned by the London Mozart Players and premiered by Tasmin Little and an
orchestral song cycle, Three Songs for Sylvia, settings of Sylvia Plath’s play, Three Women.
An early orchestral work was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize. He has received many commissions for dance
scores notably at the Edinburgh Festival and worked on over 50 theatrical productions internationally. In common with much
of his recent music, the element of performance, sometimes theatrical, plays a prominent role: Stone Song/Stone Dance,
for four players with stones was composer for Tambuco percussion ensemble in 2000 and continues to be performed extensively.
His clarinet quintet, In Memoriam: for those who fall in time of war, was commissioned by the Brodsky Quartet
and Joan Lluna in 2004 and has to date received many international performances in Spain, Holland, Serbia, Ireland, Vietnam,
Mexico, Japan etc, and received outstanding reviews; an example of concert-theatre, the work is staged and performed from
memory. In March 2012 Paul worked again with Joan Lluna and pianist Josep Colom in creating a dramatic structure around a
programme of 10 contemporary works for the Festival Nous Sons '12 in Barcelona, including the premiere of his Transgressions
No.1.
2010 saw the start of the International tour of El Gallo in Europe, Central and South America and
the US. In 2011 it was awarded prizes in Oporto, Portugal and at the Brighton Festival, UK; the premiere of Hello,
Mr Darwin; an opera for schools, commissioned by Opera UK and his solo piano piece La Malinche: transcription
for solo piano by Ana Cervantes at the Festival Cervantino, Mexico. In February 2011, his musical Sigrun's
Fire with book and lyrics by Stephen Clark, was premiered at the Central School of Speech & Drama, London.
There are two CD’s
available of his music: Turquoise Swans (Sargasso 2000) containing compositions for voice and piano, recorded
by the renowned soprano Sarah Leonard, accompanied by the composer, and Entre Palabras (Quindecim 2005) which
contains premiere recordings of Songs Between Words and his opera The Pillow Song.
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, 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 (2003); 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.
His book, Composing
for Voice, was published by Routledge in 2004. He has also contributed two articles to the OUP Encyclopedia of Peace
(2010), and a chapter on music for theatre in Devised & Collaborative Theatre (Crowood Press, 2002).
He regularly presents papers at university conferences in the UK and abroad.
