- Francis Pott
Francis Pott, born
25 August 1957 , is a British composer, pianist, senior academic and university administrator.He held open
music scholarships atWinchester College and Magdalene College,Cambridge , studying composition at the latter withRobin Holloway andHugh Wood while also pursuingpiano studies as a private pupil ofHamish Milne inLondon . For many years John Bennett Lecturer in Music atSt Hilda’s College ,Oxford , he was appointed administrative Head of Music at the London College of Music & Media (now the Faculty of the Arts) atThames Valley University in 2001, subsequently becoming Head of both Composition and Research Development in Music, Media and Creative Technologies. In February 2007 he was appointed to the University's first Chair of Composition. He holds the degrees B.A. [Hons] , Mus.B. and M.A. [University of Cambridge] and Ph.D. [Thames Valley University] , and a [Composition] Fellowship of London College of Music [F.L.C.M.] . He was a member ofWinchester Cathedral Choir underDavid Hill from 1991 until 2001, touring the USA, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Norway and Holland and participating in many CD recordings and broadcasts.Pott has received many national awards as a composer and in 1997 gained First Prize in the second S.S.Prokofiev International Composing Competition in
Moscow . His works have been heard in some eighteen countries worldwide, broadcast on both sides of theAtlantic and in the Czech Republic, issued extensively onCD and published by four major houses in theUK . His monumental Organ Symphony 'Christus' was described in the national press in 1992 as ‘one of the most important organ works of our century’, and again in The Times in 1999 as ‘an astonishingly original composition, compelling in its structural logic and exhilarating in performance: a stupendous achievement’. In the same year and in the same columns hisoratorio 'A Song on the End of the World', named after a Czeslaw Miłoszpoem fromNazi -occupiedWarsaw and written as the last pre-millennialElgar Commission of theThree Choirs Festival atWorcester , was hailed as ‘thrilling, apocalyptic and profoundly affecting’. Most recently his 89-minute oratorio for tenor solo, double chorus and organ, 'The Cloud of Unknowing', has received international acclaim since its premiere in May 2006 at London Festival of Contemporary Church Music (James Gilchrist, tenor, Jeremy Filsell, organ, and the Vasari Singers under their conductor, Jeremy Backhouse) and CD release of the work by the same artists in September 2007 (Signum Records). In 2006 Pott was a nominated finalist in the National Composer Awards of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters (BACS).Pott's
piano music is extensively championed by the Russian-Canadianvirtuoso Alexander Tselyakov , and his organ works by the acclaimed British organistJeremy Filsell , with the latter of whom Pott has enjoyed a fruitful collaborative friendship extending back 25 years.Pott remains active as a pianist and accompanist when other responsibilities allow, uniting this with both composition and academic research. He has appeared frequently as a two-piano duo recitalist with Jeremy Filsell (internationally acknowledged as a virtuoso on two instruments) and another distinguished British pianist, Roger Owens. Pott is currently writing a major critical study of the works of the Russian composer
Nikolai Medtner , and is the onlyMedtner scholar to have examined the major manuscript sources in bothOttawa andMoscow .Francis Pott lives just outside Winchester with his wife and two children [http://www.francis.pott.com] .
External links
* [http://www.francispott.com/ Francis Pott: official website]
* [http://www.fandmusic.com/mp3.htm Fand Music: A free sample of some of his work can be found here] www.signumrecords.com
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