“Happy, wired, jumpily pulsing – approachable in idiom but unpredictable in movement.”

ALEX ROSS - THE REST IS NOISE.COM

Winner of the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Composition Prize, Martin Suckling grew up in Glasgow and spent his youth playing fiddle in ceilidh bands throughout Scotland as well as violin in the National Youth Orchestra. He has since been commissioned by ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, the Britten Sinfonia, and the Le Huray Trio, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, WPKN, and KulturRadio.

Martin graduated from Clare College Cambridge with a starred first and gained his MMus with distinction at King’s College London. Subsequently, Martin held the Paul Mellon Fellowship at Yale University from 2003-5, where he was presented with the Horatio Parker Memorial Award. He is currently completing his PhD in composition at the Royal Academy of Music. As a student, Martin received many awards for composition, including the Royalton Kisch, Hilda Margaret Watts, and Woods Chandler Prizes. Martin has benefited from residencies at the RSC, Aldeburgh, and Aspen, and attended the IRCAM academy in Glasgow. His teachers include George Benjamin, Robin Holloway, Paul Patterson, Martin Bresnick, and most recently Simon Bainbridge.

At the end of 2007, Martin’s ‘adopt-a-composer’ commission, Mosaic, was shortlisted for the British Composer Awards, and his viola duo, Gemini, was performed at the 2007 ISCM World Music Days in Hong Kong. His attendance at the ISCM festival was generously supported by the Royal Academy of Music and the PRS Foundation’s ‘Music Abroad’ scheme.

Recent commissions include The Island, for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Aotromachd, for the Hebrides Ensemble; and a new work for the London Sinfonietta. The Moon, the Moon!, commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the UBS Soundscapes: Pioneers scheme, has recently been recorded by the orchestra under Francois-Xavier Roth.

Martin is Lecturer in Music at Somerville College Oxford, and teaches musicianship and composition at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music.