Christian Mason

Born in London in 1984, Christian Mason is the recipient of the latest (2012) British Composer Award in the solo/duo category for Learning Self-Modulation, a work for violin and piano. This piece was co-commissioned by the Auditorium du Louvre, Paris: Wigmore Hall, London and the CDMC, Madrid, and was premiered by Carolin Widmann and Simon Lepper in October 2011.

In 2011, Christian was selected by Pierre Boulez to be resident composer at the Lucerne Festival Academy. As a result, Christian was commissioned to compose an orchestral piece: Isolarion – Rituals of Resonance, which was premiered by the Festival Academy Orchestra as part of the Lucerne Festival 2013. Further commissions include The Years of Light for the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music (August 2013) and Unseen Seasons for the Tokyo Philharmonic Choir to be premiered at the Shizuoka Concert Hall, also the commissioner, in February 2014.

Over the years, Christian’s music has been performed by Midori, Mieko Kanno, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Adam Walker, Emily Hindrichs, Okeanos Plus, London Sinfonietta, Britten Sinfonia, London Symphony Orchestra, Opera North Orchestra, and BBC Philharmonic under notable conductors including Elgar Howarth and Francois-Xavier Roth. His music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, France Musique Lundis de la Contemporaine, and Swiss SRF 2 Kultur and RTS Espaces 2: and released on CD by London Sinfonietta (In Time Entwined, In Space Enlaced: Jerwood Series 6, September 2009) and LSO Live (From Bursting Suns Escaping, on 'The Panufnik Legacies', May 2013).

Other collaborations, for choreographers and theatre directors, include works such as Songs for the Last Slam Door Train (2006) with Barbara Keal and the Transforme project at Royaumont (2008-09). Further to this, Christian has composed the music for the new productions by Peter Gill of David Hare’s The Breath of Life (at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield in February 2011) and Robert Holman's Making Noise Quietly (at Donmar Warehouse, London, May 2012).

December 2012 saw Christian complete a Ph.D at King's College London with George Benjamin. He previously read music at the University of York and has studied composition with Sinan Savaskan, Nicola LeFanu, Thomas Simaku and Julian Anderson. Christian has participated in summer courses such as the Stockhausen Courses, Dartington, Royaumont Voix Nouvelles, Acanthes and Festival d'Aix en Provence. Christian was an invited composer at Takefu International Festival 2008, Japan, and was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 2012 to study with Frank Denyer. Christian currently works as composition assistant to Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and Composition Support Tutor for the LSO Panufnik Young Composers Project.

Christian is also founding co-Artistic Director of the Octandre Ensemble, which has benefited from the ‘Diaphonique’ grant to organise an Anglo-French Composers’ Forum at St Luke’s in November 2012, and gives regular concerts to promote contemporary music. Christian has recently been selected to take part in a series of workshops run by the ENOA in Ghent, for which he will compose three new short works.

Christian Mason’s music has been described as “a very different world, gentle and subtly coloured... intriguingly ambiguous in a way that made me want to hear it again, immediately” (Ivan Hewitt, Telegraph), “energised, bracing, craggy and brilliant” (Colin Anderson, Classicalsource), and “inspired and skillful” (Ritmo, Madrid).