Professor Bill Sweeney

Adviser of Studies (BMus) (Arts College Academic & Student Administration)

telephone: 01413304095
email: William.Sweeney@glasgow.ac.uk

R410 Level 4, Music, 14 University Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QH

ORCID iD https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4058-3816

Research interests

Office Hours: Mondays 11am - 12noon

Research Interests

Composition, Scottish Music and Musicians

Biography

Born in Glasgow in 1950 and educated at Knightswood Secondary School, studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama with W.T. Clucas and Frank Spedding and then at the Royal Academy of Music with Alan Hacker and Harrison Birtwistle.

Composer, with an output covering a wide range of instrumental, orchestral, electronic and vocal forces. Commissions have been from such diverse organisations as the BBC, Paragon Ensemble, St Magnus Festival, Musica Nova, Cappella Nova, Mayfest, the STUC, Glasgow University, RSAMD, Moving Music Theatre, McNaughten Concerts, Theatre Cryptic, The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and the Jim Henson Organisation. Equally diverse are the genres explored, from concert works through music for theatre, dance, movement, film and television and including a number of works designed for use in music in education.

The two main inspirations of my music are traditional Gaelic music and jazz; these can be found combined in An Rathad Ur for jazz saxophonist and orchestra, although the influence of one or the other of these musical streams is seldom far away in any of my works.

The incidental music for a film An Iobairt (The Sacrifice) won the Scottish BAFTA Award for Best Music in 1997. This was scripted by Aonghas MacNeacail, who was the librettist for the opera An Turus (The Journey), an opera commissioned by Paragon Ensemble, Scotland and premiered by them in 1998. Further collaborations have been Àirc an dualchais (Inheritance Ark), commissioned for the opening of the Museum of Scotland in November 1998 and Na thàinig anna a churach ud (All that came in that one coracle), commissioned for the opening of Arainn Chaluim Cille (the new campus for the Gaelic College on Skye) in 1999.

In 2005, won a prestigious Creative Scotland Award, for which he created Schemes, Blues and Dreams (premiere in June 2007), a collaboration with blues artist Fraser Speirs and with technical advice from Dr Nick Fells. String Quartet No.3 (2004) was recorded by the Edinburgh Quartet and is issued on the Delphian label.

Other commissions in recent years have been from the Scottish Ensemble: Gabhail a Chreig (Taking the Rock), 2007) and the RSAMD: The Tree o' Licht for Stringfest 2008. In 2010, a new edition of a 90-minute musical setting of Hugh MacDiarmid’s epic poem ‘A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle was toured around Scotland to great critical acclaim. Granted a residency at the Kone Foundation’s Saari Manor in Finland, he completed a large-scale Sonata for Cello and Piano which was premiered in Scotland by the Finnish Cellist Erkki Lahesma and pianist Fali Pavri and then in Turku, Finland by Robert Irvine and Fali Pavri.

Research Projects

‘O Tierra Esperame’ - setting of the poem by Pablo Neruda.
‘The Kreutzer Sonata’: Tolstoy, Janácek, and the Narrative Voice – a study of Janacek’s String Quartet No.1

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008

Number of items: 13.

2017

Sweeney, W. (2017) Eòlas nan Ribheid. [Performance]

Sweeney, B. (2017) On teaching composition: why it can be taught and why that matters. In: Heile, B., Moreda Rodriguez, E. and Stanley, J. (eds.) Higher Education in Music in the Twenty-First Century. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY, pp. 170-178. ISBN 9781472467324

2016

Sweeney, W. (2016) Caolas. [Compositions]

2014

Sweeney, W. (2014) Absence, for Wind, Percussion and Strings. [Compositions] (Unpublished)

2013

Sweeney, W. (2013) Chelovek: Sonata for bass clarinet and piano in memory of Liubov Popova. [Performance]

2012

Sweeney, W. , O'Connor, F. and Merriman, B. (2012) The Midnight Court. [Compositions]

Sweeney, W. and MacNeacail, A. (2012) These Lands, This Wall. [Compositions]

2011

Sweeney, W. (2011) Two rivers: form and development in Edward McGuire's "Source". Scottish Music Review, 2(1), pp. 1-10.

2010

Sweeney, W. (c.) , Lahesmaa, E. (p.) and Pavri, F. (p.) (2010) Sonata for Cello and Piano. [Compositions]

2009

Sweeney, W. (c.) (2009) The Old Year (John Clare). [Compositions]

2008

Sweeney, W. (2008) The flyting of Fergusson and MacDiarmid. In: Musica Scotica : 800 Years of Scottish Music : Proceedings from the 2005 and 2006 Conferences. Musica Scotica Trust, pp. 61-66. ISBN 9780954886530

Sweeney, W. (c.) (2008) Songs of Connacht. [Compositions]

Sweeney, W. (c.) , Irvine, R. (p.) and Heron, S. (p.) (2008) Tree O' Licht, for two cellos. [Compositions]

This list was generated on Wed Aug 5 10:45:49 2020 BST.

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