Philip Venables: The Composers’ Fund
Philip Venables’ music is often concerned with violence, sexuality, politics and speech in music and opera. He has been described as “one of the finest composers around” (Guardian) and his work as “brutally effective” (Times) and “brilliant, extreme work that grips like a vice and won’t let go” (Guardian).
Performers and commissioners of his work include The Royal Opera, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Wigmore hall, London Contemporary Opera, London SinfonieKa, EXAUDI Rambert Dance, HAU Theater Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg and Theater Basel.
Philip studied at Cambridge University, the Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He was Doctoral Composer in Residence with the Royal Opera House and a Soundhub resident at LSO St Luke’s 2012-2013. In 2016 he won the UK Theatre Award for Achievement in Opera with 4.48 Psychosis.
The Composers’ Fund will help to develop his techniques in combining spoken word, visual text, song and music, using pre-recorded material tightly woven into live performance, which has been particularly successful in an opera context. In particular working them into a new music theatre project encouraging a large-scale sexual and socialist revolution, based on a radical faerie text.