Steve Martland (1959-2013)

Maverick English musician dies aged fifty three

The English musician Steve Martland died in his sleep on the night of vi could, aged 53.

Talented from a young age, the Liverpool-born musician studied beneath the Dutch minimalist Joe Louis Andriessen, whose influence usually|will be|is|may be} detected in Martland’s often sharply scored and cadenced music, generally involving amplified instruments like saxophones, trumpets, guitars and drums.

His initial massive work, Babi Yar (1983), was premiered on either side of the Atlantic virtually at the same time, within the North American country by the St Joe Louis Symphony beneath writer Slatkin, and within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by the Royal city Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by St. Nicholas Cleobury.

Martland bestowed himself as AN anti-establishment maverick, deliberately writing music that couldn't be pigeon-holed in any explicit genre. represented by one critic as a ‘purveyor of a loud mixture of minimalist, Stravinskian, jazz and rock manners’, Martland consolidated his name with such works as Drill (1987), Horses of Instruction (1995) and Beat the Retreat (1995). His music was performed notably by teams like Bang on a will, and his own 11-member Steve Martland Band, whose members, as well as the leading player Colin Currie, were drawn from the worlds of pop and jazz in addition as modern classical.

His powerfully cadenced music was notably enticing to choreographers, and a number of other of his works were staged as dances as well as Drill at the Sydney theatre, Crossing the Border (composed 1990) by the Dutch National Ballet, and Danceworks (1993) that was premiered by the London modern Dance Theatre.

By the late Nineteen Nineties, a a lot of delicate and complicated refulgence became evident in his music, and Martland’s collaboration with The King’s Singers and Evelyn Glennie resulted in Street Songs (1997). He went on to compose many choral works, as well as Christmas carols that are recorded by the BBC Singers (Signum).

In 2002 he was rumored within the freelance as saying: ‘Creativity is everything that's against what is going on on within the world without delay. It's to try to to with tolerance and understanding others.’

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