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Alastair White

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Alastair White

Alastair White (born 1988) is a Scottish composer and writer. His work is characterised by a lyrical complexity which draws influence from technology, science, politics and materialist philosophy.[1][2]

Operas

In 2018, he created the fashion-opera WEAR for Tete-a-Tete. Premiering in an immersive sold-out performance at The Crossing, Kings Cross, London, it incorporated dance and fashion to explore the role of objects in changing perceptions of space and time.[3][4][5] It was shortlisted for a Scottish Award for New Music,[6][7] and revived by Opera in the City at the Bridewell Theatre the following year.[8][9]

These ideas were developed in 2019's ROBE, an opera that explored themes of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and cartography. It premiered at The Place as part of Tete-a-Tete[10][11][12] and was nominated for a Creative Edinburgh Award.[13][14] It will be released by Métier Records in February, 2021.[15]

His third fashion-opera, WOAD, is due to premiere in 2021.[16]

Other works

In July 2019 year, his Two Panels for String Quartet was released by the Altius Quartet as part of Quadrants Vol. 3.[17][18] It was shortlisted for a Scottish Award for New Music 2020.[19] 2020 saw the release of the documentary opera A Boat in an Endless Blue Sea [20][21] and the Scots-Yiddish Cantata The Drowning Shore, which incorporated Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance as part of a collaboration with the playwright's descendants.[22] [23] [24] [25] [26]

Other projects include an original score for the feature film Treasure Trapped,[27] music for the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance,[28] and a multidisciplinary installation for StAnza.[29]

He was a founding member of the bands White Heath (Electric Honey)[30][31][32][33] and Blank Comrade (Red Wharf), and writes and speaks internationally on musicology and composition.[34][35][36][37][38]

He is currently undertaking a PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London with Roger Redgate and Lauren Redhead.[39]

Contingency Dialectics

White describes his compositional methodology as proceeding from a New Materialist philosophical system, one that

foregrounds a radical new concept of subjectivity which can be realised through art: where subjectivity is a process of community that maintains (accepts) the undefiable integrity of individual monads only to combine them into a matrix of human and non-human (aesthetic, technological, etc) structures: that is, for instance, an art in which the creative reassembly of disparate, logical, mutually exclusive but reciprocally containing structures in turn effects the assembly of individuals involved in and experiencing it into a trans-subjective agent: composed of signs, meaning, and human process. This means: letting go of our old-fashioned selfhood as much as any old-fashioned ‘decentring’ in a surge of futures and utopias, in the optimism of a community where our imposed individualities combine, like the white rose of heaven, in the technologies of texts, operas and virtual worlds.[40]

Discography

  • ROBE Métier Records MSV 28609, 2021 [41]
  • Quadrants Vol. 3 Navona Records NV6239, 2019 [42]
  • Take No Thought for Tomorrow with White Heath. Electric Honey EH 1103, 2010 [43]
  • If There Is Hope... with Blank Comrade. Red Wharf RW 104001, 2009 [44]

References

  1. ^ "Alastair White". British Music Collection. 2018-11-29. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  2. ^ "The Inside Story: Alastair White and QUADRANTS VOL. 3". PARMA Recordings. 2019-08-07. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  3. ^ "WEAR". Tête à Tête – The Future of Opera. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  4. ^ "fashion and opera | Twin Magazine". Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  5. ^ "Wear – an opera performance". King's Cross. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  6. ^ "New Music Scotland". New Music Scotland. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  7. ^ "Scottish Awards for New Music reveal shortlist – M Magazine". M magazine: PRS for Music online magazine. 2019-04-16. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  8. ^ "wear | opera in the city". Schön! Magazine. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  9. ^ "Wear". opera-in-the-city.com. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  10. ^ "theartsdesk Q&A: composer Alastair White on his new opera ROBE | The Arts Desk". theartsdesk.com. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  11. ^ "Alumnus Alastair White at this year's Tête à Tête". Goldlink Online. 2019-07-19. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  12. ^ "New AI opera to premiere in Camden". London Live. 2019-08-02. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  13. ^ "2019 – Creative Edinburgh". 2019 – Creative Edinburgh. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  14. ^ "Creative Edinburgh Awards 2019: The Winners – The Skinny". theskinny.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  15. ^ "Métier Records to release fashion-opera, ROBE, by Alastair White :: Divine Art Recordings". Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  16. ^ "WOAD". Theatre de la Basse. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  17. ^ Vittes, Laurence (2019-09-02). "Quadrants Vol 3". gramophone.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  18. ^ "Quadrants Vol. 3 Review". American Record Guide. Winter 2019.
  19. ^ "The Dorico Award for Small / Medium Scale Work sponsored by Steinberg (1-10 performers)". New Music Scotland. 2020-02-24. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  20. ^ Hugill, Planet. "The children of Rathfern Primary School get creative: A Boat In An Endless Sea". Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  21. ^ "A Boat In An Endless Blue Sea". Klara - Blijf verwonderd (in Dutch). Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  22. ^ "The Drowning Shore". British Music Society. 2020-11-23. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  23. ^ "Language warning: This album is in Scottish and Yiddish – Slipped Disc". Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  24. ^ "The Drowning Shore: A Cantata in Yiddish and Scottish | Yiddish Book Center". www.yiddishbookcenter.org. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  25. ^ Hugill, Planet. "How do we transcend the divisions by which we define ourselves? Alastair White's new cantata in Scots, Hebrew and Yiddish explores the physical realities of language in our increasingly virtual world". Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  26. ^ "Compass Presents to Showcase 'The Drowning Shore'". Opera Wire. 2020-11-16. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  27. ^ Treasure Trapped, retrieved 2019-11-23
  28. ^ "SSCD 'Hard Rain'". Article19. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  29. ^ White, Alastair (2016). "Fantasia for Two Flutes and Piano". DIN. 2.
  30. ^ "On the radar: White Heath". scotsman.com. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  31. ^ "White Heath – Take No Thought For Tomorrow". The List. 2011-06-14. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  32. ^ "White Heath – Take No Thought For Tomorrow | The Skinny". theskinny.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  33. ^ ": White Heath – Take No Thought For Tomorrow". is this music?. 2011-06-01. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  34. ^ White, Alastair (2019). 'Postmodern Hyperspace in Elliott Carter's String Quartet No. 4' in 'Music, Individuals and Contexts: Dialectical Interactions'. Società Editrice di Musicologia. ISBN 978-88-85780-07-1.
  35. ^ White, Alastair. ""For me the greatest measure of a work of art is if it makes me feel uncomfortable or excites me sexually": A Lacanian reading of the Verdi Transcriptions". Principles of Music Composing: Links between Audiation and Composing. 18.
  36. ^ Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen-. "Music in the body – body in music: The body at the intersection of musical practice and discourse. Conference 4th-6th September 2019 – Georg-August-Universität Göttingen". uni-goettingen.de (in German). Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  37. ^ "Conference Program & Keynote Speaker – intersezioni2018". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  38. ^ "Futures of the Real". Research Gate.
  39. ^ "Alastair White – Biography". British Music Collection. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
  40. ^ ISSN 1989-1938, Sonograma Magazine. "Heaven's Rose: ROBE and the Philosophy of Fashion-Opera – Revista Sonograma Magazine" (in Catalan). Retrieved 2020-12-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  41. ^ "ROBE: fashion-opera :: Divine Art Recordings". Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  42. ^ "QUADRANTS VOL 3 - Altius Quartet". www.navonarecords.com. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  43. ^ "White Heath - Take No Thought For Tomorrow / Electric Honey from Piccadilly Records". www.piccadillyrecords.com. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  44. ^ If there is hope... - Blank Comrade | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic, retrieved 2020-12-05
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