Helen Ottaway is a composer, pianist, installation artist and curator. While a student at Goldsmiths’, University of London in the 1980s, she studied briefly with John Cage and up to 1998 worked as a performer, musician and composer with experimental music and theatre groups, touring nationally and internationally. In 1999, with arts administrator Steve Ehrlicher, she formed Artmusic to promote and produce collaborative,site-specific and participatory work. As lead artist she has had extensive experience of working with artists from different disciplines and curating and producing her own and other artists work. As a composer she has received commissions from BBC2, Salisbury Festival, Bath Film Festival, the Bernardi Music Group and others. Landscape, water and nature provide inspiration and and are recurring themes in a style that is predominantly minimalist with influences from folksong and English pastoral and church music traditions.
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Emma Welton
Emma Welton is a composer and performs on violin and viola. With Icebreaker she has performed contemporary music internationally, including at New York City’s Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Centre, with Brian Eno at the Brighton International Festival, and in London’s Science Museum Imax cinema. Emma co-curates with Tony Whitehead A Quiet Night In, music nights exploring the creative possibilities in quiet/silence. In summer 2021 A Quiet Night In was commissioned by Exeter’s Outside the Box Festival to make at the end of the day, a devised piece for humans sounding with an outdoor habitat. In 2017 A Quiet Night In performance was recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio’s 3 ‘Exposure’, hosted by Verity Sharp, in a concert showcasing new and experimental music.
Artmusic
The website artmusic.org.uk serves as an extensive resource dedicated to contemporary art music in the United Kingdom, focusing primarily on British composers and their works. It provides detailed and systematically organized information on a diverse range of British composers, their biographies, compositions, and related recordings. The site also includes articles, news updates, and event listings that reflect the current landscape of art music, supporting research and engagement with contemporary British music culture. Additionally, the platform archives concert programs, reviews, and scholarly texts that contextualize the evolving trends within British art music. This resource is valuable for researchers, musicians, educators, and enthusiasts interested in the development, dissemination, and performance of modern classical music originating in the UK. Through its comprehensive documentation, it contributes to preserving the cultural geography of Britain's contemporary music scene.

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