biographies
Oliver Coates attained the highest degree result in the Royal Academy of Music's history and went on to achieve an MPhil with distinction at Oxford University (New College). He performs and records as a solo and chamber musician at major venues and festivals around the world. He appears with the Linden Piano Trio, Radius, London Sinfonietta, Warp Records artist Mira Calix and has written and performed with Massive Attack. Last summer he performed chamber music with Angela Hewitt and Richard Tognetti at the Trasimeno Music Festival in Italy and improvised cello solos for the forthcoming film Battle in Seattle.
Larry Goves has had music commissioned and/or performed by The Nash Ensemble, The London Sinfonietta, BBC Philharmonic, Psappha, Ixion, the Hallé Orchestra, Melinda Maxwell, The Continuum Ensemble, 175 East and many others. His music has been broadcast several times on BBC Radio 3 and released on the new music label NMC and Dutton Epoch. He has received funding from The RVW Trust and the AHRC and is on the spnm shortlist and the London Sinfonietta’s Blue Touch Paper scheme. He has performed at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and is due to perform at Faster than Sound 2008. He is currently a tutor in composition at the Royal Northern College of Music and a research student of Michael Finnissy’s at Southampton University.
Tom McKinney studied at the RNCM with Gordon Crosskey and Craig Ogden, and as a postgraduate student he was the recipient of two major awards from the Countess of Munster Trust and the Musicians Benevolent Fund. Since graduating he has performed with most of Britain’s major orchestras and new music ensembles in repertoire ranging from Boulez’s Le Marteau sans Maitre to Ray Parker Jr’s music to the movie Ghostbusters. Guitarists may be interested to know that Tom plays a 1998 Paul Fischer and a Gibson SG.
Mark Norman graduated from the Royal Northern College of music in 2003. He is a member of in internationally renowned percussion quartet 4-Mality and has worked with the BBC Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, Opera North, English National Ballet and Northern Ballet Theatre.
Matthew Welton was born in 1969 in Nottingham. He currently lives in Manchester and teaches creative writing at Bolton University. His poetry first appeared in Faber's First Pressings and New Poetries 2 (Carcanet). The Book of Matthew, published by Carcanet, won the Jerwood-Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2003. Forthcoming publications include We needed coffee but we'd got ourselves convinced that the later we left it the better it would taste, and, as the country grew flatter and the roads became quiet and dusk began to colour the sky, you could guess from the way we retuned the radio and unfolded the map or commented on the view that the tang of determination had overtaken our thoughts, and when, fidgety and untalkative but almost home, we drew up outside some all-night restaurant, it felt like we might just stay in the car, listening to the engine and the gentle sound of the wind, a new book of poems for Carcanet and Waffles, a three-poem pamphlet for Landfill Press. He no longer edits Stand magazine and has not for some time.
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Carl Raven is a versatile performer as a RNCM graduate on the saxophone and clarinet and experienced in the classical, jazz, folk and experimental music contexts. He has performed with the Apollo Saxophone Quartet, Ensemble 10:10, Cardew Ensemble, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Northern Ballet, Manchester Camerata, Northern Sinfonia, Opera North, The Goldberg Ensemble and is a founder member of the new music groups Random Access. He has made T.V. appearances with the Andy Prior Orchestra, Soapstar Superstar (Granada) and BBC Folk Awards (BBC) with folk band Bellowhead. He has also been involved in numerous theatre tours and West End productions.
