MICHAEL BONAVENTURE (b. 1962, Edinburgh), composer, keyboardist, concertising organist and promoter of new and experimental music based in London, Amsterdam and Edinburgh. He has composed many electronic and electroacoustic works, large-scale organ cycles “Darenth” & “In Orbit”, ensemble and solo instrumental works for Sounds Positive, David Appleton(pianocircus), Mark Spalding and an extended motet “O Virgo Virginum” for the Merbecke Choir of Southwark Cathedral. As a perfomer he has concertised throughout the UK, in Europe & USA, on BBC Radio 3 & Radio Scotland, premiered over 80 new works and made numerous CDs.
MICHAEL BONAVENTURE (b.1962, Edinburgh) composer, keyboardist, concertising organist and promoter of new and experimental music based in London, Amsterdam & Edinburgh. In recent years he has produced a large and ever-expanding volume of electronic and electroacoustic works, as well as chamber, solo instrumental, organ and choral music; his works have been heard at JAM (John Armitage Memorial) concerts, the Annual Festival of New Organ Music (AFNOM), the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music (LFCCM), York Minster, Southwark Cathedral, the Orgelpark in Amsterdam, Orgel- Mixturen Festival in Cologne, Sala Sinfonica, Madrid, the Warehouse, London, and at Colourscape on Clapham Common. Recent performances of his music in the UK, USA and Netherlands include ‘Green Odyssey’, commissioned by Scottish piainist Mark Spalding in memory of Morris Pert, ‘Rearmost Odd’, toured in the UK by Lauren Redhead in her recent Sound & Music organ & electronics project, and the electroacoustic pieces ‘In Orbit IV’, ‘Dragon IV’, ‘Dog Ym Ho’ and ‘Droma’; recent London performances include an organ piece ‘Orion’, premiered at a JAM concert in March this year, and an Electronic Mass, created in collaboration with Huw Morgan and first used experimentally in a penitential liturgy held at St. Laurence Church, Catford, during Holy Week. Later this year Mark Spalding will premiere ‘Epsilon Centauri ’, a work for piano and fixed media electronics.
As an interpreter of contemporary music he has generated much new repertoire, working with a huge number of composers at home and overseas and premiering over 80 works to date; he has concertised in cathedrals, churches, universities and at festivals throughout the UK, in Europe, the USA and on BBC Radio 3 & Radio Scotland. Notable venues include Westminster Abbey, the cathedrals of Coventry, Truro, St. David’s, St. Paul’s London, Southwark, Westminster and Notre Dame, Paris, St.Thomas Fifth Avenue, New York, the Purcell Room, Orgelpark, Amsterdam and the Kunst-Station St-Peter, Cologne. He has performed with artists such as His Majesty’s Sagbutts & Cornetts, panflute player Matthijs Koene, The Whistlebinkies, the Elysian Singers of London, shakuhachi player Kiku Day and electronics composer & performer Stuart Russell. In recent times he has premiered works by Luiz Henrique Yudo, Huw Morgan, Tom Johnson, Robin Holloway, Geoffrey King and Dutch electronics maestri Roderik de Man and Robert van Heumen. Forthcoming appearances will include the Orgelpark, Amsterdam and the Canterbury Festival.
Together with composers and organists Lauren Redhead and Huw Morgan he is a member of the composers’ collective AUTOMATRONIC (http://automatronic.co.uk/) which was formed in 2013 to explore and promote new music for electronic media and organ; overseas, he is a member of MUIZMANZ, another composers’ collective formed together with René Baptist Huysmans and Luiz Henrique Yudo, and presenting concerts mainly in the Netherlands.
As a recording artist he has made many CDs, notably the later organ cycles of Olivier Messiaen on the Delphian label – including a rendition of the massive “Livre du Saint Sacrement” which earned universal critical acclaim and selection as Editor’s Intrumental Choice in the Proms 2008 edition of BBC Music Magazine – and four volumes of ‘Contemporary British Organ Music’ on SFZ Music, a series which includes the complete organ music of Paul Patterson, Laurence Crane and Gabriel Jackson, among others. Also on SFZ, he appeared as main keyboardist on the album “At His Majesty’s Pleasure” by Martyn Harry, released in 2012, and will shortly record a new album jointly with Huw Morgan, featuring their music for organ & electronics.
