Ilan is a British film composer who has established himself as an exciting young talent in the world of film music. Born in London into a musical family, Ilan grew up playing violin and later took up playing guitar in bands. He studied Music and English literature at Leeds University, during which time he also worked with film composer Ed Shearmur learning first-hand the technique of film composition. After graduating, he went on to work with other film composers such as Michael Kamen and Hans Zimmer. At this time Ilan began scoring his own projects, and his talent for creating cinematic music on a limited budget soon gained him recognition within the film industry.
Department welcomes a new composer to the team
Martin Iddon, who began in the School at the start of 2010, introduces himself ‘I joined the School of Music in December 2009, having lectured for several years at Lancaster University, and before that at University College Cork in Ireland. I studied both composition and musicology at the Universities of Durham and Cambridge, and now carry out research in both areas.
My musicological work focuses for the most part on the Darmstadt New Music Courses and the composers most associated with them, especially Boulez, Bussotti, Ferneyhough, Kagel, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Nono, Pousseur, Stockhausen, as well as with the indeterminate music of John Cage and its performance, particularly by Cage’s long-term associate, David Tudor.
I’m also interested in musical borrowing and practices of listening in everyday life, and have a fondness for the music of the Notre Dame school and fifteenth-century polyphony.
My instrumental compositional practice is largely concerned with extremes of performative endurance and the physical theatre of performance. I also like to work in collaboration, particularly with Antti Sakari Saario, in our duo, [zygote], which produces music in fixed media, thus far most memorably (from my own perspective) using the sounds we found by demolishing an upright piano, both with and without a sledgehammer. [zygote] has also produced music for Proto-type Theater’s recent productions, About Silence and Virtuoso (working title). My music has been performed in Germany, Italy, Canada, the USA, and the UK, and has recently been broadcast on Radio 3.
In between my various academic lives I have also spent several years being complained at by disgruntled British Gas customers, opening accountants’ letters, and headhunting managers for Britain’s leading biscuit and cake companies.
I continue to bore anyone who will listen regarding the precise distinctions that can be made between class 2 and decorative gas fires or why a Jaffa cake cannot accurately be described as a biscuit. Outside the worlds of music, gas appliances, envelopes, and confectionery, my interests lie predominantly in French philosophy, Italian coffee, and American zombie movies.’
Date Published: 22 February 2010
Keywords: Martin Iddon, composition
Keywords: Martin Iddon, composition
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