Our Research Community

As a council member of MusicHE, Aleks has been involved in recent cross-institutional campaigns to safeguard the future of music at UK conservatoires and universities.  He is a QAA performing arts subject specialist assessor. He has written several articles and a book chapter on blended learning and critical pedagogy and is an external specialist at BIMM.  

As a performer, Aleks specialises in performing music of the 20th and 21st Centuries and has released several albums of contemporary repertoire on the Prima Facie record label, including the Piano Concerto by Daryl Runswick, Inner Landscapes (Douglas Finch), A Land so Luminous (Kenneth Hesketh), and the album Aztec Dances with the recorder player Jill Kemp. He has recorded for Nimbus with the flautist Wissam Boustany, and given premieres of works by Frederic Rzewski, Dai Fujikura, Haris Kittos, Edward Gregson, Nicola LeFanu, Sam Hayden and David Bedford, among others.   

As pianist in the ensemble Gemini, he has recorded three albums with Métier, including works by Jonathan Harvey, Sadie Harrison, Huw Watkins, Philip Grange, and the first recording of Mandala 3 by David Lumsdaine. As well as Gemini, Aleks works with Lontano, rarescale and the Continuum Ensemble.  He has performed in more than forty countries over six continents, on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, Channel 4, and Colombian and Lebanese television.    

In the last 20 years Charles Linehan Company has been regularly featured in Dance Umbrella Festival, London.

He is the Founder and Director of London International Screen Dance Festival, a Panel Member for Screendance International, Detroit; and will be a curator for the inaugural Brighton International Screen Dance Festival in Autumn 2022.

Charles’ recent dance film The Shadow Drone Project has been shown at Festivals around the world including San Francisco International Dance Festival, Dance on the Camera, New York; Mexico City Video Dance Festival and Dance Umbrella Festival, London.

He received a Winning Film award for The Shadow Drone Project from POOL: INTERNATIONALES TanzFilmFestival BERLIN in 2019.

Charles Linehan’s new film The Sound Mirrors will be released in Autumn 2022.

‘Hearing Your Genes Evolve’ for string quartet featuring in a Filmtank Production, ‘The Dark Gene’ was nominated for a Berlinale Film Festival Documentary Prize. Other awards include the Chester Schirmer Fulbright Fellowship, UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers Award for my orchestral work ‘Empire States’, a Leverhulme Fellowship, a Sir Winston Churchill Fellowship, a Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, a PRS Women Make Music Award for ‘Reflected Glory’, a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and a PRS Composers’ Award in 2020. Her music has been recorded by Crash Ensemble and for a new film about genetics available on ‘constellations.world’

Her orchestral work was recorded for the lyric fm label ‘Irish Composers Series’ and her chamber music CD, ‘Island People’ was recorded for NMC. Richard Whitehouse in Gramophone wrote “the chamber domain seems ideally suited to her often inward and intimate manner of expression…it traverses a wide emotional range …a release that is cordially recommended to Gribbin admirers and newcomers alike.”

A specialist in the US-Mexican composer Conlon Nancarrow, he has spent 10 years, researching, curating, arranging and presenting his works around the world.

Starting as a self-taught musician, he has gradually made a transition from playing drums and percussion as a member of The High Llamas as well as recordings with Pavement, Stereolab and many others, to classically-based composition and education. Since 2003 he has been Head of Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, forming a department that has become well-known for its innovative methods and student-centred approaches.

He has taught at every educational level and is currently in demand as a supervisor and examiner for practice-based PhDs.

Works have been commissioned for, and/or programmed by many leading performers across Europe and as far afield as South Korea, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Janaer Philharmonie, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Musikfabrik, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, soloists Roberto Fabbriciani, Nicolas Hodges, Sarah Leonard, Carin Levine, Ernesto Molinari, Ian Pace and Peter Veale, to name but a few.

Recent works include: an orchestral piece for the Jaenar Philharmonie in Germany; a solo piano piece for Susanne Kessel; a contribution to the Beethoven 250th anniversary celebrations in Bonn; in 2020, two quintets for Ensemble Crush and LUX:NM of Berlin, and a second string quartet for a concert devoted entirely to his work in Gdansk, Poland.

Pritchard’s music has been performed around the world, in Europe, America, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea. Festival performances have included Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Wien Modern, ISCM World Music Days, Tanglewood (USA), International New Music Week, Daegu (S Korea), Weimar and many others worldwide. Several pieces have been broadcast by BBC, RAI, SWR and several other networks.

Gwyn Pritchard founded Uroboros Ensemble in 1982, the Reggello International Festival in 2003, and London Ear Festival in 2013, of which he is still Artistic Director. He is a Professor of Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, London, and has given lectures and masterclasses at many academic institutions in Europe, America and Asia. He has written, introduced and participated in programmes for the BBC, and has contributed articles and reviews to a variety of international musical publications.

Currently supervising PhD students on the following topics: Musical Composition (x2); Politics and Aesthetics; Musical Historiography; Movement Intervention and Architecture; Ontology of Motion-Depicting Photography; Geometry, Enaction and Choreographic Praxis; Contemporary Music and Curating.

At PGT and UG Level, modules taught include: Music Historiography; Philosophy of Music; Music and Perception; Art and Phenomenology; 19th and 20th Century Music; Popular Music; Generative Computer Music; Max/MSP Programming; Elektronische Musik and Musique Concréte.

Residencies and Awards:

Residency, Bloomberg SPACE, London (2011); Visiting Lecturer, Conservatorio di Musica, Perugia (2008); Visiting Research Fellow, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver (2003, 2005); Residency at Bluecoat, Liverpool (2001); Residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada (2000); Instrumental Scholar, Magdalen College Oxford (1990-1993).

Sunk Losses (2002) for large orchestra, composed during a 2002 residency at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, won first prize in the 2003 Christoph Delz Foundation Composers’ Competition, receiving its first performance by the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra during the festival ‘Musik im 21. Jahrhundert’, in Saarbrücken in May 2003. Hayden’s Faber Music Millennium Series commission, Collateral Damage (1999), was performed in 2003 by Ensemble InterContemporain in the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Recent commissions include Le Retour à la Raison (2003) for solo percussion and electronics for the Ictus Ensemble, Emergence (2004, rev. 2010) for solo accordion, ensemble and live electronics for Frode Haltli and the Oslo Sinfonietta; Relative Autonomy (2004) for the London Sinfonietta; system/error (2003, rev. 2005) for Anne La Berge, Mieko Kanno and Claire Edwardes; Substratum (2006, rev. 2008) for the BBC Symphony Orchestra; schismatics (2007, rev. 2010) for electric violin and computer for Mieko Kanno; and Die Modularitäten (2007) for Ensemble Mosaik. Permutazioni / a caso (2009) for amplified ensemble received its premiere by RepertorioZero at Tage für Neue Musik, Zürich, in November 2009, and misguided (2011) for clarinet(s), saxophone(s), trumpet and trombone was premiered by the ELISION Ensemble at the ABC Iwaki Auditorium, Melbourne, Australia in March 2011. Hayden’s most recent work, surface/tension (2012) for solo oboe and ensemble, was premiered by Christopher Redgate and the Cikada Ensemble at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2012.

Hayden’s works have been performed at major international festivals including Ars Musica (Brussels), Bath Festival, BBC Proms, BIG Torino Biennale Arte Emergente, Gaida Festival (Vilnius), Gaudeamus New Music Week (Amsterdam), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, ISCM Festival (Essen / Hong Kong), Klangraum (Stuttgart), MaerzMusik (Berlin), NYYD Festival (Tallinn), Rumor Festival (Utrecht), Tage für Neue Musik (Zürich), Time of Music (Viitasaari), The State of the Nation (London), Ultima (Oslo) and Warsaw Autumn.

His works have been recorded on the Divine Art, GROB, NMC, Oboe Classics, United Phoenix Records and UTS labels. A portrait CD of his works (presence/absence) was released by NMC in 2012 as part of their Debut Discs series.Other performers of Hayden’s music have included the Ensemble Antidogma, ASKO Ensemble, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Canto Battuto, El Perro Andaluz, Ensemble Cattrall, Composers Ensemble, De Ereprijs, Ensemble Ernst, Ensemble Exposé, Gaudeamus Ensemble, Gemini, Gruppe für Neue Musik Baden, IGNM Zürich, Klangforum Wien, Kokoro, Mats Scheidegger, Neophon Ensemble, NYYD Ensemble, RNCM Wind Orchestra, Steamboat Switzerland, Ensemble Surplus and Orkest de Volharding. His music has been performed regularly by ensemble [rout], which he co-founded with composers Paul Newland and Paul Whitty. He has also performed in laptop improvisation duos with Tom Hall and Urs Liska. He was appointed Reader in Music at Trinity Laban in 2013.

Sophie studied music at King’s College, London University where she completed her doctoral thesis on ‘Women Composers during the British Musical Renaissance, 1880-1918’.  

Sophie’s teaching experience includes ten years of lecturing at the University of Reading.  

Naomi’s professional choreographic work has been commissioned and presented across Canada and Europe (since 1998) within festivals such as TanzArt (Germany), Brighton Fringe (UK), Dancing of the Edge (Canada) and Chutzpah! (Canada). Naomi’s practice-led research is published in academic journals and book chapters (Intellect, Frontiers and Routledge), she presents regularly at national and international conferences and is a reviewer for the Frontiers in Psychology Journal. Naomi’s artistic work and teaching is informed by her doctoral research which examined the effect of mindfulness meditation on a creative process of dance making. Naomi’s current research is funded by Arts Council England.

Qualifications / Educational Background

Graduate Studies & Professional Qualifications

• Reader of Choreographic Practice – July 2021
• Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy – May 2019
• PhD Creative Practice (Dance) – July 2013, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance – London, UK
• Fellow Higher Education Academy – September 2007
• MA Choreography – October 2004 Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance – London, UK

Undergraduate Studies

• Bachelor of Fine Arts – Major in Dance – April 1998, Simon Fraser University – Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
• Professional Dance Diploma – April 1996, Grant MacEwan Community College – Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Creative Outputs

• Book chapter entitled ‘Moving as a thought process: the practice of choreography through stillness’ for the Routledge Dance Companion Series, edited by Professor Helen Thomas & Stacey Prickett – 2019
• International Association of Dance Medicine and Science, Montreal, practitioner wisdom presentation, October 2019
• 5th International Dance & Somatic Practices Conference – Coventry University – invited presenter – July 2019
• Perf/Forming Future: Artistic Doctorates in Europe, Middlesex University – invited presenter – April 2019
• Frontiers of Psychology, Expertise in evaluating choreographic creativity: An online adaption of the Consensual Assessment Technique, co-authored with Lucie Clements, Emma Redding & Jon May, 9:1448. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01448, August 2018
• Presented in Parallax Trinity Laban Research series ‘Moving as a thought process: studio development and creative encounters’ + documentary film by Jason Brooks – October 2018
• Arts Council England, Grant for the Arts funding award – for Part 2 Research and Development – dance-making and mindfulness with Lucille Teppa and Tara Silverthorn – February 2016 – November 2018
•  Journal of Performance and Mindfulness, ‘Moving as a thought process: An insight into mindfulness through dance and choreography’, co-authored with Tara Silverthorn & Lucille Teppa, article published Autumn 2018
• XVII International Conservatory Week Festival, St Petersburg, Russia – invited presenter – October 2017
• AHRC Leverhulme Imagery project team for In the dancer’s mind: creativity, novelty, imagination, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, September 2014 – December 2017.
• 4th International Dance & Somatic Practices Conference – Coventry University – invited presenter – July 2017
• Girls’ Day School Trust, The Cultivation of Mindfulness in Schools conference – invited presenter June 2017
• Presented at Labanarium, Mental imagery and creativity – University of Surrey – January 2017
• International Association of Dance Medicine and Science, Hong Kong, practitioner wisdom presentation entitled: ‘Mindful Moving: An insight into mindfulness through dance-making and choreography’, October 201
• Presented in Parallax Trinity Laban Research series ‘Moving as a thought process: An insight into mindfulness through dance and choreography’ + documentary film by Jason Brooks – October 2016
• Performance and Mindfulness International Symposium, Huddersfield University, paper presentation – June 2016
• Journal Article, ‘Sharing Practitioner wisdom: Collaborative approaches to learning and teaching for contemporary dancers in conservatoire training’, Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, co-authored with Dr Emma Redding & Alison Curtis-Jones – April 2016, Vol 8, No 2.
• Foundations for Excellence Conference – Meeting the challenges of excellence in Music and Dance – invited presenter – November 2015
• Arts Council England, Grant for the Arts funding award – for Part 1 Research and Development – dharmakaya with Lucille Teppa and Tara Silverthorn – August 2015 – October 2016
• Co-authored book chapter, ‘Dancing and flourishing: mindful meditation in dance making and performing’ with Professor Sarah Whatley in Dance, Somatics and Spiritualties: Contemporary sacred narratives, leading voices in the field, edited by Sarah Whatley, Glenna Batson, Amanda Williamson, Intellect November 2014
• International Association of Dance Medicine and Science, Basel, Switzerland, practitioner wisdom presentation entitled ‘Interdisciplinary approaches to learning and teaching for contemporary dancers in conservatoire training’, October 2014
• World Dance Alliance Global Summit, Angers, France, panel presentation entitled ‘Interdisciplinary approaches to learning and teaching for contemporary dancers in conservatoire training’, July 2014
• PhD Creative Practice (Dance) thesis entitled dharmakaya: An investigation into the impact of mindful meditation on dancers’ creative processes in a choreographic environment, June 2013
• Research in Dance Education Volume 11 Issue 3, 251, book review of Charm and speed: virtuosity in the performing arts, V. A. Howard , June 2010
• Authored chapter in The artists’ stories: Featuring 30 Canadian Artists, published by Canadian Arts Alliance, June 2006
• International Association of Dance Medicine and Science, Stockholm, Sweden, ‘The development of a longitudinal inter-disciplinary screening program for full time dance students’. Paper presentation, Emma Redding, MSc, Rogerio Correa, Peter Curtis, Sarah Irvine, MSc, Naomi Lefebvre Sell, MA, November 2005

Link to PhD thesis:https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/2634/

Awards:

• External Examiner, Bath Spa University, BA Dance, 2021-2024
• Professional Development Course for External Examiners, Advance HE, 2018
• External Examiner, University of Sunderland, BA Professional Dance, MA Advanced Dance Practice, MA Advanced Professional Practice (Dance), 2018-2022
• External Examiner, University of Salford, BA (Hons) Dance 2019-2023
• Validation panel member, University of Sunderland, BA Professional Dance, MA Advanced Dance Practice, MA Advanced Professional Practice (Dance) 2018
• Reviewer for Arts, open access journal
• Reviewer for Frontiers in Psychology – an open access online journal

Qualifications/ Educational Background

• Doctor of Music (Composition) Ohio State University 1972
• MMus (Music Theory & Harmony) Florida State University, 1967
• BM (piano) Florida State University, with Honors, 1965

Post-graduate work:

• Stanford University, California 1983
• Computer Music, IRCAM, Paris 1981
• Fulbright Fellowship to work at the Experimental Music Studio, Polish Radio 1972-1974
• Electronic Music, Dartmouth College (USA), 1972
• Certificate in Conducting, Mozarteum, Austria, 1966

Teaching Experience

• Instructor – Butler University, Indianapolis, 1967-69
• Teaching Assistant – Ohio State University 1969-71
• Guest Professor, Royal College of Music, 1988 – 89
• Guest Professor, University of Texas-Austin, 1992, 1995, 2000
• Guest Professor, University of New Zealand, 1997
• Composer in Residence at Trinity College of Music in 2003 -04
• Joined the Trinity composition staff in the autumn of 2004
• Professor, Royal Academy of Music, 2007-09
• Numerous workshops, seminars, new music projects, residencies world wide since 1974.

Creative Outputs

Important commissions have included the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall, International Computer Association, National Portrait Gallery, The Royal Ballet, BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall), TransAtlantic Arts Consortium, The Bath Festival, ISCM Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Belgian Radio, Warsaw Autumn and Stavanger Speculum Festival (Norway).

CDs of Montague’s works are available on NMC (UK), ASV, Continuum, Op 111, Signum and numerous other labels.

He has published over 50 articles in magazines and journal, and contributed 18 articles to The New Groves Dictionaries of Music.

His music is published by United Music Publishers, UK.

External Appointments

New Music Associate- Kettle’s Yard Art Gallery and Museum, University of Cambridge, 2010-2012 where he runs a monthly concert series.

Awards

International Piano Magazine Award: “Best New Music Piano Recording” (2006) for his CD Southern Lament (NMC)

British Composer Award Finalist, 2004

Fellowship of Leeds College of Music (FLeedsCM), 2004

Honorary Fellow- Trinity College of Music (Hon FTCL), 2001

Year of the Artist Award, 2000, UK

Distinguished Alumnus Award Ohio State University, 2000

Distinction in Computer Music, 1996 Ars ElectronicaPrix, Linz, Austria

Ernst von Dohnanyi Award for Musical Excellence, 1995

First Prize, 1994 Bourges International Competition for Electroacoustic Music, France

Winner, The London Dance and Performance Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Music, 1988

Fulbright Fellow, Warsaw, 1972-1974

His next album, New Memories (2002), was hailed as “the most expansive, expressive and exciting new jazz orchestral sound to have emerged in this country since the late-lamented Loose Tubes” by John Fordham in The Guardian.

“An exuberant and remarkable talent, Koller’s music is full of surprises.” – Ian Carr – Rough Guide to Jazz, 3rd edition (2004).

Over the next decade Koller worked on refining his sound, writing for Steve Lacy (London Ear ), working in large group contexts with Evan Parker, and with Kenny Wheeler and Bob Brookmeyer, performing and recording with the NDR Bigband (Scenic Routes ), as well as playing piano in various groups led by Mike Gibbs (including a tour of England in 2007 alongside Steve Swallow, Bill Frisell and Adam Nussbaum).

Subsequently, Koller produced a number of significant outputs of his own music including performances with Phil Woods and the BBC Big Band, a project with Dave Liebman, writing for the WDR Big Band with Gerard Presencer, a project with the HR Big Band, and, in 2009, an album with Bill Frisell and Evan Parker (Cry, Want ).  Koller had by then begun to focus on valve trombone, inspired by a 2006 study/stay at Bob Brookmeyer’s house, and started a fruitful small band partnership with drummer Jeff Williams, and bassist/trumpet player Percy Pursglove.  He recorded quartet albums for Babel (Chasing the Unicorn), with Paris-based Canadian saxophonist François Théberge, for Evan Parker’s PSI label with the legendary German saxophonist Gerd Dudek (Day and Night), and in 2011 started forming a formidable creative partnership with NYC altoist John O’Gallagher.  On their first meeting, Koller and O’Gallagher were memorably described by John Fordham in The Guardian as “two heavyweight theoreticians fizzing with jazz heat”, and the pair went on to work regularly, producing two BBC Radio 3 broadcasts, performances and recordings in both large ensemble and quartet contexts, and collaborating in a 2015 commission from Jazzlines to write for the renowned BCMG (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group).

Koller’s most ambitious work, his 2016 triple vinyl release Retrospection (on Stoney Lane Records), brought together over 30 of the world’s leading jazz musicians, including Steve Swallow, Jakob Bro, and the NDR Bigband.

Growing up in rural Bavaria, Koller first came into contact with jazz musicians in his teens while attending jazz summer schools run by Brian Abraham’s District Six in Ingolstadt.  In 1991 he came to England, first to Middlesex University where he majored in composition, then at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) where he obtained a masters degree in Ethnomusicology.