Biography Graham Lack

The English composer Graham Lack was born on 18th August 1954 in Epsom, Surrey. Between 1976 and 1981 he studied Composition with Anthony Milner and Historical Musicology with Brian Trowell at Goldsmiths’ College and King’s College in the Uni- versity of London (BMus Hons Lond, MMus). He received a State Certificate of Educa- tion (Cert. Ed.) from the University of Chichester (then Bishop Otter College) and taught at Epsom High School, conducting the school choir and orchestra. During this time he was appointed Director of Music at St. Paul’s Church in Cheam – where he had previously sung as treble – and begun to compose motets and fashion Psalm set- tings for the choir there, gathering valuable compositional and professional experience.

In 1982 he moved to Germany, continued his studies at the Technical University of Berlin (Doctoral Thesis on spectral music) and took up a Lectureship in Music at the University of Maryland (Munich Campus), where he remained until 1989. He taught Harmony and Counterpoint, Analysis, and Music History, founding too a University Orchestra and Chamber Music Ensemble, groups for which he wrote several new works. A short interregnum in England followed: between 1993 and 1994 he was Head of Music at Cricklade College in Hampshire. He returned to Munich in 1995 and re- mains a sought-after lecturer and speaker at seminars and international symposia, e.g. at the University of Oxford (Dramaturgy in Contemporary Finnish Music 1999) or the Goethe Institute Germany (1st International Symposium of Composer Institutes, Chair, 2000). He has contributed articles to Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians and to Tempo Magazine for Contemporary Music, among other journals. He currently works as a freelance composer.

Early chamber music works by Graham Lack include the Clarinet Trio, and a Quintet for violin viola, violoncello, horn and piano. A more recent work for the virtuoso multi- percussionist Martin Grubinger and pianist Per Rundberg is entitled Wondrous Machine (premiere 2012). The Preludes for solo piano (two are complete: Strange, Charm, four are to follow: Truth, Beauty, Top, Bottom) were started in 1998. Orchestral works include Five Inscapes for chamber orchestra and Nine Moons Dark for large orchestra. The string trio The Pencil of Nature was premiered in 2011 as part of the prestigious “musica viva” concert series in Munich, receiving a notable review in the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

One of his most successful a cappella works to date is the 12-voice Sanctus, commis- sioned by The Chapel Choir of Queens’ College Cambridge and premiered in 1998 in Cologne as part of a live broadcast by the West German Radio (WDR). It has often been sung by the Münchener Bach-Chor and was performed recently in Brisbane, Aus- tralia (Canticum), Copenhagen, Denmark (Winneba Youth Choir of Ghana) and Cam- bridge (Queens’ College, as well as the Fairhaven Singers). The work will be released on Guild in 2012, performed by Queens’ College Choir.