Professor Piers Hellawell
Professor Piers Hellawell
Professor of Composition
Email: p.hellawell@qub.ac.uk
Tel: +44 28 9097 5202
Office: Music Building
Address: School of Music and Sonic Arts, Music Building, Queen's University Belfast,
BT7 1NN
Personal Webpage: www.piershellawell.com
Key Roles:
Teaching:
Acoustic Composition (integrated undergraduate course from Year 1 to Year 3);
MA in Composition, including free composition and study of 20th-century music;
historical and practical teaching since 1981
Administrative
Concerts coordinator to 2006, SSCC chairman, instrumental curator, school brochure editor to 2006, pastoral tutor, disability liaison, Erasmus liaison
Achievements and Distinctions
Piers Hellawell has held the Chair of Composition at Queen’s University since 2002. From 2000 to 2003 he was Gresham Professor of Music in the City of London; he is now an Emeritus Professor of Gresham College.
Piers Hellawell’s work has been commissioned, broadcast and performed in many countries; collaborating artists have included Michala Petri, Evelyn Glennie, Psappha, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, RTÉ Vanbrugh String Quartet, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Pierre-André Valade, Britten String Quartet, Håkan Hardenberger, Pedro Carneiro and others.
Commissions include those for the BBC Proms, Philharmonia, Hilliard Ensemble, LSO, COMA London, Schubert Ensemble and Stockholm Chamber Brass, with performances at numerous festivals including Ultima! and Kristiansand (Norway), Umeå, Huaröd and Båstad (Sweden) and Kaustinen (Finland), and in the UK the BBC Proms, Brighton, Cheltenham, Spitalfields and others, with regular BBC Radio 3 and international broadcasts. Non-festival concert appearances in recent years include Pasadena, Vancouver, Rovaniemi, Oslo and London (Wigmore Hall, QEH, LSO St Lukes); in 2006 Hellawell’s Composer Portrait was given by the Schubert Ensemble on London’s South Bank.
Three commercial CDs of Hellawell’s music have appeared on the Metronome label: Sound Carvings (1998), Inside Story (2002) and Dogs and Wolves (2008).
In addition to these, his works appear on the ECM New Series, Metier and NMC labels, and are heard regularly on BBC Radio 3; in September 2008 his orchestral work was featured in two editions of the flagship new music programme 'Hear and Now'.
Piers Hellawell has previously served:
NAMHE: Elected to National Council
SPNM: Board, Council and Reading Panel
Latvian Composition Prize Panel
Numerous UK adjudications and workshops
Research Interests
Composition, Music Education
Latest Work
Clarinet concerto Agricolas premiered by Robert Plane (cl) and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, at Vale of Glamorgan Festival 2008, Llandaff Cathedral.
Selected Major Projects / Publications since 2000
- Cors de chasse, for Hakan Hardenberger, Jonas Bylund and Philharmonia Orchestra: 2004 Brighton International Festival, Queen Elizabeth Hall 2006, BBC Radio 3, 2004
- Degrees of Separation, Northern Sinfonia Orchestra/Andy Sheppard, saxophones: Sage Gateshead Opening Celebrations, 2004
- Dogs and Wolves, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, City Halls Glasgow, BBC Radio 3, 2006
- Sound Carvings from the Bell Foundry, Stockholm Chamber Brass, Kristiansand Festival Norway/Belfast Festival at Queen’s, 2006
- Agricolas for clarinet and orchestra, Robert Plane (cl) and BBC Naional Orchestra of Wales, Vale of Glamorgan Festival, 2008
In 2007 Piers Hellawell’s work was acquired by the international music publisher Peters Edition Ltd (London)
Research Students
Current
Dan Morse, Derek Kelly, Grant Ford, Hugh Boyle, Jim O'Leary
Recent
Simon Mawhinney, Deirdre McKay, Greg Caffrey, Eunan McCreesh
