Composition

With four full time members of staff, compositional research ranks high amongst the School of Music ’s strengths, and covers a large range of styles, genres and approaches, including instrumental and vocal music, electroacoustic and acousmatic music, and music for film. Each composer has earned national and international recognition, with their various areas of expertise feeding through directly into the teaching of composition.

Compositional research is also supported through the Parry Williams Visiting Composer Fellowships and research into the development of software tools for electroacoustic music composition and performance.

Instrumental and Vocal Composition

Dr Guto Pryderi Puw is one of the most promising Welsh composers of his generation. His musical inspiration is firmly rooted in Wales, its language and literature, with a particular affinity to the poetry of R S Thomas, while his compositional style embraces the developments of the European avant-garde, together with adopting other more recent tendencies. Puw is also the Artistic Director of the Bangor New Music Festival since its founding in 2000.
Eclectic elements feature strongly in the music of Dr Pwyll ap Siôn, ranging from American minimalism and roc and pop music to post-serial techniques and the use of quotation. His latest commission is a solo violin work for the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists, held in Cardiff in 2008.

Although Prof Andrew Lewis is primarily active in the field of acousmatic composition, he also undertakes projects for instruments alone, and for combinations of electroacoustic and acoustic media.

Electroacoustic and Acousmatic Composition

Electroacoustic music has become a particular specialism at Bangor, with our staff composers (together with past and present research students) producing a number of award-winning works and establishing an international reputation. Composers working at Bangor produce both acousmatic music and music for live instruments with computer processing. The School of Music is equipped with two purpose-built Electroacoustic Studios.
In addition to compositional activity, electroacoustic research at Bangor also covers the development of software for both composition and performance, and the development of novel applications for existing software and hardware.

Electroacoustic Wales is our performance and dissemination arm, organising concerts, public demonstrations and workshops using a dedicated 30-channel diffusion system.

Andrew Lewis specialises in acousmatic music (electroacoustic music designed for performance over loudspeakers). He is director of the electroacoustic music studios, and Electroacoustic Wales, which acts as a focus for the public dissemination of electroacoustic works through concerts and workshops. He also composes music for acoustic instruments, both with and without electroacoustic resources. Several works are available on CD and Audio DVD.
Andrew's music has won several prizes, awards and mentions (including, PRS, Prix Ars Electronica, Stockholm Electronic Arts, Hungarian Radio, British

Arts Council Bursary, Noroit finalist, ARTS XXI Valencia, CIMPESP São Paulo, Bourges ‘Euphonie d’Or’) and is performed and broadcast in many countries.

Please click here if you wold like to visit Andrew Lewis’ personal website.

Composition for Film and TV

Several members of staff in the School of Music are active in the field of composition for film and television.

Owain Llwyd's work ranges from film music in education projects to television adverts, from theme tunes to short film soundtracks. He is particularly active in writing music for adverts, and has written library music for Boosey & Hawkes which has been widely used in various applications. For a detailed worklist visit Owain Llwyd’s personal website.

Jochen Eisentraut has an impressive output of music for film and TV, which include soundtracks for over 70 television programmes and series broadcast on S4C, HTV, Channel 4 and the BBC. His list of prizes includes a Gold Award for family drama at the New York International Film and T.V. Festival and ‘Best Film at the Cutting Edge’ award at the British Animation Awards in 1998.

Pwyll ap Siôn's work includes scores for television drama and drama-documentary, broadcast on S4C and TG4. He has also written theatrical incidental music.

Guto Pryderi Puw composed the soundtrack for the historical documentary Tywysogion (‘Princes’, S4C) tracing the history of the Welsh Royal descendents from the 10th century to the 15th.